


Where Reality Bends

by EvilOrangeCrayon



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15411120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilOrangeCrayon/pseuds/EvilOrangeCrayon
Summary: The Drake crew isn't new to the unusual, but when a simple mission gets very complicated Nadine has to struggle to deal with a truth she had refused to believe and save a relationship that's had its share of ups and downs.





	1. ~Prologue~ The End is the Beginning

 

            On some level, even before any of this started, Nadine knew this was how her life would end. Trapped, wounded, sweaty and alone. At least she had made a final stand, and Chloe was safe. That thought alone allowed her bow-tense muscles relax, the grip on her pistol slackened a bit and she felt a smile come over her face. _They_ were safe, and that was all that really mattered.

A volley of bullets hit the side of the desk she was scrunched behind, the metal buckled a bit with every one, letting her know another such attack would leave her without cover. All she could do without exposing some part of herself to the ten or so men surrounding her was scoot back a bit further. She was out of smoke grenades, flash bangs and incredibly low on bullets, that left her with only one option. It took more strength than she ever expected to take the remote detonator out of her breast pocket; with one click it would all be over, her duty would be complete. Before her radio had been shot her allies made it clear they were starting to evacuate and she had known at the outset this was going to be how it wound up, still her thumb failed to apply its full force to the switch.

Death did not scare her, it never had, however all the things left unsaid and undone… the regrets that were going to be left in the wake of her actions was almost more than she could bear. There was a part of her that wanted to fight, to dash out, guns blazing and try to make an escape before blowing the entire compound sky high, but she was surrounded and so much as peaking out would probably mean a swift death from an angle she couldn’t anticipate.

Blood was pooling from a cut on her right leg that she was just now noticing was deeper than she originally thought, her head was still reeling slightly from being hit with the butt of a gun and she was pretty sure her left arm had a hairline fracture. To try anything spectacular in this state was how one got hurt and died a slow death, and these were exactly the type of guys to relish in that. Then she would have not only failed to survive, but failed to ensure Chloe survived. In fact it would just about grantee the Drakes’ demise as well and that would be a poor way to repay the man she had burdened with a task she herself should be fulfilling.

All that aside, she didn’t fear death, but…

Chloe was going to be so upset.

Or would she even care?

What Nadine last said wasn’t nearly enough; she owed her so much more and desperately wanted to give it. Wanted to be there in the future to try and make up for the past, but then another volley of bullets shredded the place she had been hiding before and she felt that sinking void of an impossible task.

The sound of men shouting told her the end was seconds away and she couldn’t help, but feel sorry for herself that she was going to die here with so much to lament.


	2. Making the Impossible Possible

Sam slicked back his hair and straightened his favorite blue Hawaiian shirt, there was a redhead at the end of the bar and she had been sitting there alone for over twenty minutes. This was it, the big time, he had been sitting and chatting up random, far less attractive, women the whole time in the hopes of not seeming like a total creeper, and now it was time to move in.

He was ready for most anything, but when her sharp blue eyes hit him he melted a little as a tiny voice told him he was going to charm this woman and they would be together forever. Sure he felt that way about any woman who looked at him with that soft pouty expression, but who cares?

“Excuse me, but would you mind if I bought you a drink?” he asked giving his most award winning smile.

The momentary confusion on her face made him think he made a mistake in believing she spoke English, he supposed he should have guessed as much since he was in Puerto Rico. He had only assumed that she wasn’t local because of the hair, but it didn’t matter, he hadn’t spent most of his adult life in a Panamanian prison for nothing.

However before he could whip out his bilingual skills the woman seemed to suddenly catch up to his request and replied, “Oh, I um, I suppose.”

Despite how devastating he knew his smile to be, Sam hadn’t honestly expected that answer, recovering quickly he waved down the bartender, “A guaro for me and whatever the lady wants.”

As fate would have it he never learned what the lady wanted, he never even learned her name, because when he turned back to her he found himself inexplicably alone. Confused he looked around and then back to the seat where the woman had just been and his heart leapt into his throat.

“Holy hell!” he gasped upon seeing the seat was now occupied by Nadine Ross.

“I need to talk to you,” was all she said in way of greeting.

He shook his head, instead trying to spot red hair in a crowd of black and blonde, “No thanks, I have to find my future wife.”

“I don’t think she’ll be back anytime soon.”

The realization hit him suddenly, “ _You_ scared her away? Why?!”

“Because I need to talk to you, I need your help and it’s an emergency.”

“Wha-” desperate he stood on his toes trying to find what direction the woman had left in, “How did you scare her off so quick? Even I can’t repel people that fast.”

“Guns make people move quickly.”

Sam rubbed his hands over his face. A crazy woman had pulled a gun on her and told her to shoo, there was no way he was going to get her to come back even if he did spot her.

With a heavy sigh he plopped down on his stool and looked tiredly at Nadine.

“What? What is so damn important that you track me down, however in the hell you did that, and ruin my pura vida?”

“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” she said standing.

Sam raised his hand, “No, I’m drawing a line! First, you are buying me drinks, lots of them, and second I am not budging an inch unless you tell me what this is about.”

Her eye twitched and for a moment he worried that he may have pushed too far, but instead of hitting him in the gut she grudgingly said, “I’ll buy you all you want inside, and it’s about Chloe, she’s in danger.”

Sam gave her an incredulous look, “Look, I’ll hear you out, cause of the drinks, but honestly I can’t imagine the trouble she’s in that the two of you can’t get her out of.”

Nadine didn’t say anything as she turned and headed to the hotel that sat a short ways away. Inside it was much quieter, mostly party goers who had their fill or couples who were ready to go somewhere private; Sam tried not to let his jealousy show. The hotel bar was more a bistro than anything, it was clearly meant for the guests who were in the country for business not pleasure. Tables, a couple of booths, and a few television screens were all it had to offer, Nadine picked out a quiet corner of the room while Sam ordered a Malacrianza and let the bartender know to keep them coming.

Beer in hand he sat across from the last person he thought he would see on his vacation and took a long swig, “Okay, what is so important?”

“Chloe’s been kidnapped, she’s in Brazil and we have to go get her as soon as possible.”

Sam stared at her blankly for a long time before he realized that was all she had to say about it, “And? That can’t be it, she’s been kidnapped before. Why come dig me out of the sand? You hate me.”

Watching her he could see she now seemed to be a touch flustered about what to say, “I don’t exactly hate you.”

His eyebrow went up, “Wow, I’m feeling so loved right now. Sure, Nadine, let me drop everything and help you in a dangerous mission to save someone who is probably out of her captors clutches and hooking up with some random dude right now. Just like I should be… only not with a dude- you know what I mean!” He downed more than half of his beer and belched magnificently, “Look whatever it is that has you this worried must be rough, but I am on vacation and looking for love, so you are going to have to convince me that this is something that she needs me for.”

Nadine heaved an almighty sigh and sat back in her chair, “Alright, I’ll explain from the beginning, but you have to believe me when I say every word is true.”

Sam felt his already raised eyebrow hike a little farther up; this had to be quite the story. As tempted as he was to tell her he would make no such promise he honestly wanted to know what Nadine Ross thought was so out there and dangerous that she would bother to try and enlist him while telling him nothing about what was going on.

“Okay, I’m all ears.”

“We took a job a while back, Chloe and I, in Greece to get an artifact,” she paused and Sam nodded hoping to encourage her to continue. “I… we… it was worth a lot to a wealthy investor.”

“As artifacts tend to be,” he offered.

“It was worth _a lot_ to these investors, an absurd amount, but what was weird was the thing they wanted didn’t really exist, historically anyway. I mean technically it did, but realistically-”

“You’re losing me here. What is it that they wanted you to find?”

“An Amazonian treasure, a small statue of a pregnant woman, allegedly crafted by Artemis and blessed by Aphrodite, it was supposed to ensure fertility.”

“The Amazons didn’t really exist though, at least not in the way most people mean when they say the word. So they wanted you to find something from the Scythians or something like that?”

“No, they literally wanted us to find a place built by the Greek Amazons of myth and legend and return with an artifact that we had never heard of.”

Sam frowned, “So they asked you to find Santa and take one of his elves. They sound nuts, why take the job?”

“Because they were paying top dollar for the attempt. They said they had sent many before us, but no one had been able to recover it.”

“This sounds crazy suspicious, there is too much gain for you and too little for them.”

Nadine nodded, “That’s what we both said.”

“And you still took the job?”

“Chloe thought we could handle it.”

“So it turned out a huge trap, and Chloe got captured?”

“No, the excavation went off without a hitch,” she elaborated.

However after that implication Sam struggled to hold onto the main thread of the conversation, “Are you implying that you found Santa and took an elf?”

Sitting back she looked across the bar at nothing in particular, “We found Santa and took an elf.”

“So the Amazons were real? Like really real? Not nomadic tribes, not a small handful of rogue women, but honest to goodness tv Amazons?”

Still looking into the distance she shrugged, “I don’t know about how accurate television is to what we found, but it was definitely a society formed by women going by the paintings on the walls and statues all over. Think Libertalia, but all female inhabitants, a well hidden city with most of their dwellings in the mountains.”

Sam was leaning forward now, totally engrossed in the news, this was amazing, this would change history. He ached to see it for himself and immediately started to plot a way to get Nathan to come with him.

The tense nature of the discussion forgotten he went on, “Well, whatever they were looking for they must have basically known where it was, so how was it so hard to find for everyone else? Unless one of you has knowledge about ancient Greek history that you hid from me.”

“I don’t think it was hard to find, I just don’t think it was possible for men to find.”

 “That’s sexist,” he joked.

“No, seriously, I’ve thought about that as well, and I think that’s the reason.”

“So are you implying that there is… what? A magical field around the place that keeps men out?”

Her eyes cut back to him, “Remember you already agreed to believe me, and as I recall your brother is out there claiming a crazy Serbian drank some magic tree sap and became an immortal god so maybe hush up.”

“Touché.”

“We found what they wanted exactly where they said it would be. We found some trinkets worth keeping and some worth selling and then we found another one.”

He blinked, “Another what?”

“Another statue, just like the one they asked for. This one was in the ruble of a hut on the outskirts of the city so it seemed like it was a replica owned by one of the inhabitants. And we figured if these guys would pay so much for one maybe they would pay more for two.”

“Sound logic.”

Her eyes went back across the bar and Sam felt a sudden apprehension, like they were approaching the part she didn’t seem to want to tell.

“It was, and we should have done it, but Chloe was all excited after the job and we were getting so much for just having gone never mind coming back with something. She felt like we should just keep the second one as proof that we were the first into an unexplored city.”

Thinking for a moment Sam nodded, now he understood, “They found out and now they want their second trinket and Chloe won’t tell them where it is.”

She didn’t look at him this time, but she did give a humorless chuckle, “I wish. No, it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Please explain, because so far what I hear is that you were well paid to go get something, you got it, got your money and rode off into the sunset all the richer for it.”

Another long silence went by, then Nadine finally turned to him and leaned forward, apparently resolved to make him understand. “The artifact isn’t a fertility totem in the traditional sense, in almost any culture it’s something that either through belief or herbal assistance is meant to increase the odds of pregnancy; in this case it guarantees it.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed slowly, “Sooo, Chloe’s pregnant?” he asked carefully, hoping this, like all his other theories was wrong. It must be because if he was right what the hell could he possibly do about it?

“Yes,” she said, her serious look not wavering, “And our employers have her because apparently she is the only documented case they have of the statue working and the pregnancy lasting more than a few months.”

“How far along is she?” he asked, oddly feeling that this was the most surreal part of the conversation.

“Eight months.”

This was the longest pause yet, “Okay so… hold on, so… wait… Chloe… wait… what?”

“She is being held in a facility in Brazil by our employers who are German in the bad way. I don’t know what their plan is, but it is evil enough to include abducting Chloe out of her house.”

It was Sam’s turn to lean back and look out the window trying to put it all together. Chloe was going to be a mother. He could hardly picture it, not the free spirited, fly by the seat of her pants Chloe Frazer. It was bad enough that someone had kidnapped his friend, but to put a baby in danger too? Having recently become an uncle he somehow felt a stronger sense of indignation about the situation.

Who endangered a pregnant woman? And for what? Why use something like that for the worse? There were so many couples that would pay good legal money to have a kid together. Then again what proof was there that it was actually the statue? Maybe this was all happening by coincidence, what if every couple who had unprotected sex around the thing just so happened to get pregnant?

“How do you know it’s the statue that caused her pregnancy?” he asked, suddenly back in the conversation, leaning in to try and figure the whole thing out.

“It was the statue,” Nadine said flatly.

“How do you figure? What does the father have to say about all this? Do you know who he is? Where he is?” This time Nadine retreated to the safety of her seat and mumbled that Sam had to struggle to hear. “What?”

“It’s me.”

“It’s you what?”

“I’m the other, er, source of genetic material.”

In the silence that followed, the longest yet by far, he only realized that his mouth had been hanging open the entire time because of how dry his tongue was when he finally spoke.

“You and Chloe… and then she was…” another long silence, “I didn’t know you two were a thing.”

“We’ve been official for about two years.”

He had suspected as much on some level, but had always attributed it to the fact that his mind always went there when two women were close friends. For a while he’d thought Chloe and Elena had something going on.

“Is it possible that- not to belittle your relationship, but doesn’t it seem like a more likely explanation is that she cheated?” he asked carefully.

She scoffed, “Ja, naturally it was the first thing I thought. I thought that even when she swore it wasn’t true and I thought that when I left her,” the last few words sounded choked and pained. “It was the only thing I would even try to think until… I was going to her house to collect some things and I saw the tail end of her getting abducted. I got the license and traced it back to our employers, an organization called Leben, they are based out of Germany, but operate in Brazil. I used every contact I could to try and find out what was going on, the only information I could get was from a past contact who got me a copy of their experiment notes. It was only then that I believed her.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About a month. I’ve tried to get in contact with anyone who will help me on this, come to find out with the exception of that contact and a few mercenary bands I worked with in the past, you are the only person that I trust with this _and_ is accessible.”

“You couldn’t hire anyone to work with you?” he asked, not unkindly.

“There are a few talented individuals who are joining me that I had to pay in promises I’d rather not keep and I am sure I could secure a few of their colleagues help if I paid, but...” Nadine paused and sighed heavily, “Ever since I lost Shoreline to the highest bidder I have been a bit reluctant to place something important in the hands of someone who might sell it. The people I work with now I trust more than the average merc, but only so far and there are elements of my plan that will not work if that is the case. There are not many people who have my trust completely, it used to be only Chloe, there are others now and one is you. I trust you.”

“I’m touched, but… I mean I want to help, but how? We go to Brazil and what? How many people are we talking about? Where is she being held? What’s the security like?”

“She is being held in a base that’s mostly underground, the security is high and there are a few hundred people on site at all times. But, you don’t have to worry about all of that, all I need you to do is see her out safely.”

“How can I not worry about any of that? Seems like it’s all very much my problem if that’s my job.”

“I swear it’s not. Just come with me, grab her and get her to safety.”

He wanted to question her more, to argue that she was hardly making a case for how he would get out unscathed with a woman who may be in any sort of shape, but something about her face assured him that she meant what she said.

It also made him even more apprehensive about the mission than he had been.


	3. Fun and Fancy Free

Chloe stood on the edge of the balcony of the luxurious multi-story mansion covertly looking down into the front lawn. She was supposed to be listening to the man in front of her, an ex-military type called Bibek, after all he was taking such good care to explain how important the expedition she was supposed to lead was to him. He was also paying for her time at this very moment, which was why she was even pretending to listen, in reality she was scouring ground below for some sign of the only person she had wanted to see since she got off the plane to Nepal.

Bibek seemed to finally notice her waning interest and offered her a flute of wine, “Am I boring you?” he asked, and the poor dear seemed to be genuinely concerned that he was.

“No, no I’m just on the lookout for my partner, she’ll be in charge of security for the trip and I’m sure she’ll want to hear all this.”

Looking relieved he smiled, “Ah, I see, yes, that is true. And what were her credentials again?”

“Mercenary leader turned treasure hunter, that good enough?” said a familiar sulky voice from behind him.

The sulking, Chloe knew, was a result of many hours cramped on a plane for an international flight, the only thing that could make her partner grumpier faster was any man with the last name Drake.

Moving to the other woman’s side Chloe threw on a huge smile and said, “Bibek, this is my partner Nadine Ross, and don’t mind her she’s had a long flight, she is actually more than qualified to make sure we are secure, I would literally bet my life on it.”

He gave the glowering woman a weak smile that she tried to return, but it just looked like a scowl. Chloe had no idea if the man was interested in having an ex-mercenary guard him, especially one that seemed to have an attitude problem, but she didn’t have a fuck to give about how he felt. Honestly the job was a bit beneath her as she would just be a glorified tour guide in a war zone, what made her jump at the opportunity the second she heard it was available was the fact that it had been one whole month since she had seen Nadine.

That was becoming a bigger and bigger deal as of late, and she both did and did not understand why.

The obvious reason was the sex.

Ever since a drunken unexpected night in France, barely a year after their partnership began, they had begun a sexual relationship that was one of convenience and almost no substance, Chloe’s absolute favorite kind. After the first time the second sort of just happened the next time they shared a room, and now they were always sure to share a room. She had come to anticipate it more than the thrill of the jobs she signed them up for, the feeling she would get upon seeing Nadine out and about and knowing what was inevitably going to go down in their room was electrifying. Even now she had a Pavlovian response to even seeing the woman, there was never any discussion of what was next or when they would meet again, only passion and the perfect amount of pain.

The meeting wasn’t too formal so Nadine was dressed presentably with her hair pulled up in a ponytail and sporting a v-neck t-shirt and jeans, something that showed off her perfectly toned and freckled arms making Chloe want to lick her lips, as for herself she had dressed up a bit sporting a fitted top that showed off her bosom and her favorite pair of slacks that did her ass all kinds of favors. To the untrained eye it would look as if she wanted to impress their prospective client, in reality it was all for Nadine who definitely noticed. No matter how subtle the other woman tried to be with her side-eyeing, Chloe knew when she was being checked out.

As Bibek struck up a conversation with Nadine, Chloe took the time to look the woman over more thoroughly. She wasn’t even discrete about it because she wanted her to know just how brief the conversation needed to be. They already had a room on the top floor courtesy of their host and she planned to make use of it every second she could. Having already scoped it out she had a particular need to get into the hot tub up there.

Seeming to get the message Nadine smoothed out her attitude and was soon talking popular military tactics with good ol’ Bibek. He seemed to enjoy her company and she did appear to be getting into the conversation, but Chloe had waited too long to concern herself with all that. With an exaggerated yawn she announced she was going to turn in for the night, she was seen off briefly and the conversation was picked up without missing a step as she left, however the message had been sent to Nadine loud and clear.

You. Upstairs. ASAP.

She took the elevator to the top floor and let herself into their private room which comically had two beds, though she supposed one could be used for actual sleeping. There was a tightening in her stomach at the eagerness she felt, and this was the part she didn’t get. Yes there was the sex, but Nadine was hardly the first person she had this kind of relationship with. At one time Nathan had been this to her, someone who she would meet up with on a job, they would screw and go their separate ways, yet somehow this was different. Never once in her life had she ever purposefully taken a job with the job itself being secondary to the person she was taking it with. There was nothing she could do to rationalize that behavior other than to add that it was phenomenal sex.

It was bothersome to her that she didn’t know what to do with herself before Nadine arrived; should she undress a little? A lot? Should she lay herself out sensually on the bed or pretend to be engrossed in something? Most times Nadine caught her before she could even get in the room all the way so this was the first time she had to prep herself.

With a light chuckle she rubbed her forehead and tried to calm down, in that moment she really had to acknowledge that she had it bad. In all honesty she did get what was going on and probably had from the first time they drunkenly kissed on her bed in a rundown hotel.

“Okay I’ve fallen for her a bit,” she said to the room, testing the words on her lips, but her ears told her that was wrong. “Totally infatuated,” that was also wrong, this was more than that, but Chloe didn’t do love. Love lead to a bunch of complicated bullshit, the only thing she loved was the way things were now. She enjoyed Nadine’s company and this infatuation would fade off, as their sexual relationship would eventually, they always did and it was usually because she ended them.

For now she would lay herself out on what she had decided would be their sex bed and wait to be ravished.

It didn’t take long for her to hear the ding of the elevator from down the hall and the sound made her heart race. There was a slim chance the person coming wasn’t Nadine, theirs wasn’t the only room on the floor, yet she knew it was her, because after the elevator doors closed she heard nothing. Silent steps carried whoever had exited to the door, she could see the break in the light, hear a light click of the lock and as it was pushed open, there she stood.

“What took you?” Chloe asked, keeping her voice from betraying the excitement that was building.

“After you left the poor bastard wanted to know if you were seeing anyone and if I knew what type of flowers you like.”

Her eyebrows went up, “What did you tell him?”

“He seemed very serious, so I told him roses.”

“Roses?” incredulity dripped off the words.

“I know you don’t like flowers as gifts, but he didn’t seem like he’d take that answer so I said the first thing that came to my head,” she said as she came in, sat in the large chair between the two beds and began to pull off her boots.

Chloe watched with mounting impatience, as soon as the boots were off and safely tucked under the chair Nadine pulled out her phone and started texting. Trying not to let her restlessness show she sat up and moved to the edge of the bed feeling the mounting fear that the other woman was actually going to make her say the thing they never spoke of in normal conversation.

“Rough flight in? You seemed particularly snappy when you got here.”

“The flight was a nightmare as usual, but that’s not why I was pissed. The driver I had dropped me off at the backside of the estate so I had to walk all the way through the woods and when I did get here the guards in back see how I’m dressed and assume I’m a local looking for trouble.”

Chloe laughed, “Oh, no! You didn’t hurt them did you?”

“Not a lot.”

“Well, if nothing else we’ve made an impression.”

Nadine nodded and stood walking over to the door to open it and look outside, “Might have been the wrong impression, my things aren’t up here yet.”

Chloe was desperately trying to figure out how to ask without asking so she defaulted to, “Do you even need your bag right now?”

Nadine closed the door and shrugged, “I suppose not, guess I’ll just sleep in my clothes, won’t be the first time.” With that she walked over to the recently dubbed sleep bed and lay down.

Trying not to feel the immense disappointment that was crushing in on her Chloe decided that she would not be reduced to begging, though the rational part of her brain argued that she hadn’t even stooped to actually asking. Defeated she turned and found her suitcase that had been brought up earlier and unpacked her pajamas and wash-bag before heading to their needlessly lavish bathroom. She took her time getting ready for bed, brushing her teeth and combing her hair with a roughness born of irritation. Finally she put on the matching blue silk two piece that wasn’t exactly sexy, but was comfortable, she didn’t think she’d have to do any nighttime seduction and therefore hadn’t packed accordingly.

However upon opening the door she found she was looking right at Nadine who was leaning up against the doorframe, and those sharp brown eyes had the look in them that Chloe had been searching for all night.

“Sure took your time in there,” she said giving Chloe an intense once over that made her shudder.

Unable to hold back a smile she quipped back, “I thought you were going to bed.”

“And you were going to let me?” Nadine shot back looking truly insulted.

Before Chloe could say anything the other woman lifted her off the ground as easily as she would pick up a child. In reaction she wrapped her legs around Nadine’s waist and met her mouth in a kiss that made her heart race and her whole body run hot. Immediately she located the band that bound her lover’s hair and ripped it away to allow her to bury her hands in the dark curls that she dreamed about. Nadine was a magician when it came to clothes and between her being wrapped around the other woman’s body and being laid out on the bed Chloe had lost all her clothes. Granted that was an easier task than it sounded since she didn’t wear bras or panties to bed nevertheless she was quietly astounded at how she never even noticed it happen.

Soon after, or a long time after, she couldn’t tell time when they kissed that way, Nadine lay over her pinning her arms above her head with one hand and grasping greedily at her breasts with the other. It didn’t escape her that had anyone else, male or female, done that she would have put a stop to it right away, instead she deepened the kiss that had her at such a loss for time. It was only broken as, for the first time, Chloe became painfully aware that Nadine was still dressed when the other woman purposefully ground her belt buckle right into her clit and the sensation that flashed through her made her gasp.

“That is _not_ fair,” she rasped, but anything else she could have said was cut off by Nadine doing it again. A groan escaped her mouth and it was so deep and distant Chloe didn’t even realize it was her that had made the noise.

In an attempt to fight back she tried to pull a hand free, but she had forgotten about how absurdly strong her lover was. Instead of letting her go Nadine kept both hands prisoner while the one that had been caressing her breast found its way between her legs. Chloe tried, honestly tried not to sound too desperate when those expert fingers entered her, but the moment they did she could hear the mewling whine leave her while her back arched of its own accord.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Nadine mused before she kissed her again, deeper, bruisingly hard, and it was everything she had wanted and more. The kisses went from her lips to her jaw to her nipples, Nadine’s teeth pulling at the stiff peaks while that wonderful hand was still working her into a frenzy.

Panting hard Chloe tried to squirm away from the onslaught desperate to at least get her partner naked before she came, however trying to escape was a level of silly on par with the guard that had tried to stop Nadine at the gate.

She didn’t know if she had lasted a long time or not, it didn’t really matter, the moment they kissed it had stopped mattering, only her pride tried to keep time anymore. The rest of her thrashed helplessly as an orgasm made an absolute fool of her attempts to be composed.

Nadine released her, those beautiful eyes watching her every move, “You really are a bully you know that right?” Chloe asked trying to look irritated, but even she could see her thighs still trembling.

“The question, Ms. Frazer, is what are you going to do about it?”

Chloe knew exactly what she was going to do about it and she had known from the moment Nadine had stepped in the door. She made good on her plans and a little extra besides, they wore themselves out into the early hours of the morning and the sun was just starting to crawl over the horizon when they were finally too exhausted to do anything else and instead lay down to get some sleep.

In the soft light of the approaching dawn Chloe was forced to confront the truth of her relationship, because, like with many things that involved Nadine their post coital ritual was something that she had never allowed with another lover. Cuddling was a no-no, but somehow when Nadine lay behind her and pulled her close she didn’t just allow it she looked forward to it, like dessert after a filling meal. Every time they would spoon, and though Chloe would cut someone for calling her a little spoon in public that was the position she was in and couldn’t love it more. Especially the way Nadine would lay a protective arm across her, just under her breasts and keep her close. Whenever they were apart and she was alone she found she missed that feeling the most, the feeling of closeness, of safety.

Sure her arms were toned and muscular, but that wasn’t why they made her feel safe. It was who they belonged to, Nadine was nothing if not loyal, if someone burst in the door to hurt one of them that strength would be for her as well, to keep them both safe. As sad as it was to even Chloe she hadn’t felt assured that would be the case with anyone else, even Nathan, as dangerous as her line of work could be she hadn’t run into too many people that would take a bullet for her. And that loyalty went past the physical; even though they weren’t in an actual relationship she knew Nadine considered it enough of one not to do anything shitty like run off with someone else or respond to the countless propositions she got while they were out together. When they were on a job Nadine was hers entirely and she suspected that the same was true when they weren’t together.

It was the same for her.

The thought made her squirm because it was too much like admitting the thing she flat out wouldn’t allow. So she just closed her eyes and held on tight to the arm that felt like it could protect her from the world.


	4. Ominous Plans

Sam wiped pointlessly at the sweat that beaded his forehead and tried not to look as exhausted as he was. There were men and women bustling around busily in the middle of literal nowhere making camp less than a mile from where Chloe was now being held, or so he was told. Nadine had informed him that only a few friends from the old days would respond to her call, but upon seeing that a few meant about a hundred he began to genuinely wonder what her connections had been like back in her mercenary days. Currently the sullen woman was talking to a man that looked a touch like an alien with the goggles he was wearing, Sam didn’t know squat about any of the gear the busy men and women of the camp were moving around and unless it happened around the 1500’s he didn’t know squat about war, however he knew a specialist when he saw one. The man stood in the arrow straight fashion that years of military training brought, his arms were bandaged and peaking from beneath them was a tapestry of burn scars that meant this man had learned many lessons at a high price.

Not wanting to continue to look as useless as he felt he walked up to the two and tried to appear as though he were meant to hear their conversation. Neither Nadine nor the man turned to acknowledge his arrival so he merely nodded as they spoke.

“And just to double check Sebastien is ready to take point once she’s out?” Nadine asked the man.

He nodded, “Course, though Bucky Boy’s all sour that he can’t come to the extraction.” Sam was surprised that the man had an American accent, he sort of wanted to rib Nadine about it, since she always seemed to have such distain for American mercenaries, but figured now was not the time.

“I would love to have him, but we can’t wait for him to get here.”

The man scratched his chin, “It’d be nice to have him for some extra manpower, but honestly me ‘n Thach have it under control.” He jerked his head over to an older, bearded man sitting at a table reading a book and sipping something out of a mug.

He wasn’t so sure of that, the man looked as tired and bone weary as Sam felt, “I know you do,” Nadine said, “and thank you for coming.”

The man laughed, “You never have to thank me for something like this, I’ve been looking for an excuse to blow things up. We aint the pick of the litter and I know you’d rather not be involved with our little group, but I’m glad you called,” with that he wandered off to his beleaguered looking friend.

Before Sam could ask any questions Nadine turned to him, “Come walk with me,” and took him by the arm, leading them away from the camp and into the trees. A prospect that was a little unnerving because it was a Brazilian jungle and night was falling rather quickly throwing everything into deepening shadows.

The day before showed him that in this remote location the darkness would soon be deep and complete. He didn’t relish the idea, but once again he forced himself to seem braver than he was and didn’t even ask where they were going.

Eventually they came to a clearing that overlooked a vast valley and at the bottom was what looked like a small facility. It then occurred to him that this was it; this was where Chloe was being held.

With a huff he squinted down at the building, “Well if it’s there then why did we have to make a camp so far away?”

Nadine didn’t respond at first, she just took out a pair of binoculars from one of the many pockets of her tactical vest and surveyed the area below.

“Light travels fast and far in this kind of darkness. Any closer and we will be found immediately. We are already taking a risk even being this close, but they rarely receive helicopters here.”

“Right, of course you’d have all the answers,” he sighed as he sat down looking pointlessly at the structure. Fearing that she was going to hit him for his snark he jumped a bit when Nadine handed him the binoculars, taking them he resumed looking at the area below. “I still don’t even get it, why do you need me? That guy back there looked like he could go in and grab her real quick and shoot down anyone who dared to say something about it.”

She shook her head lightly, “He and Mike are going to lead the second charge into the building, I will lead the first and you will lead the third.”

All interest in the valley left him as he turned to her, “What?! Are you kidding me? I can’t lead a bunch of mercenaries! I can barely lead my little brother to a boat without getting in a ton of shit.”

For the first time in a while she smiled, “I am fully aware of that,” and like he had imagined it the smile was gone. “The third charge is a little different because you will be by yourself.”

“That sounds even worse,” he said, now standing as anxiety started to grip him.

Turning to look him dead in the eye she said, “It isn’t, I promise you it will be safe.”

Normally such a thing would mean nothing to him, a promise of safety was about as reliable as a bridge made of 300 year old wood; however something about the way she spoke told him it wasn’t just some lie intended to quiet him down. Just like before, she meant it.

He handed the binoculars back to her, “What am I supposed to do as a one man army?”

“There is a back route through the facility that will be unguarded because the only way in and out is through an exhaust vent that is always on and is too steep to scale normally. We are going to turn it off and send you in while we go in from two other angles. From where you go in you should be able to find and retrieve Chloe in about five minutes. You will use a Jeep to get there and the same one to escape so don’t leave it somewhere too obvious.”

Sam tried to find a way to phrase his question so it didn’t sound too much like whining, but then decided he didn’t really care how it sounded, “I still don’t see why you need _me_. Sam Drake, the guy you only kinda hate, to come out here and do something any one of your friends back there could-” when she looked like she might interrupt he pressed on, “Yeah, I understand you don’t want to trust her to just anyone, but why not send Gruff McGoggles in on wave one, Tired Grandpa on wave two and you swoop in on wave three?”

“A few reasons, the first being whoever extracts Chloe needs to leave immediately to get her to safety and I am not going to just leave these guys in the thick of it once I have what I want. The second is that getting Chloe is not the only important mission here.” That caught him by surprise, what could be as important as saving Chloe and her baby? He assumed the question was clear on his face because Nadine didn’t make him ask it. “I have to destroy this place. They have records of her, of her whole life and everyone that’s been involved in it. For whatever reason the researchers here have not sent the information on her back to Germany, my guess is that they are waiting until the baby is born, so right now this is the only place in the world that knows about her and the truth of her condition. If we take her and don’t deal with this, they will find out and come after her. Everyone involved has to die, every file and computer has to burn, this is a scorched earth operation.”

For a moment he almost asked again why she couldn’t just arrange it so that the others take on that task and she return to finish it off, but then he realized the horrible truth, “You don’t plan to come back.”

The darkness that had finally fallen seemed to close in tightly on them, and in the fading light he could see her jaw tighten, “Since the building is mostly underground if we take out the main support structures the entire thing will collapse, and since they are up to all sorts of horrible things it will cause a chain reaction of explosions with their experimental munitions in the lowest levels,” she raised her hands and pantomimed a dust cloud over where the building sat, “scorched earth.”

“And you have to die to do this?!” He didn’t mean to yell, it was just the anxiety turning to hopelessness.

“The last pillar we need is pretty deep in, I can get in easily enough, but leaving… I’ll be surrounded and killed before I can detonate it safely, so the only option is to detonate it unsafely.”

“Wh-” his brain scrambled to find an argument, “What about Chloe? You think she’ll accept that?”

“She’ll have to because of course you won’t be telling her,” Nadine looked at her boots then, as if she could no longer meet his eyes. “I don’t think I will be much missed by her in any case.”

Sam scoffed incredulously, “Are you joking? Even before I knew you two were a thing I could have told you that she cares about you more than anyone else in the world.”

There was a silence as she still refused to look at him and rubbed the back of her neck, “Back when you asked if I had ever considered if she’d cheated on me? Do you remember that I said I left her? Well, it wasn’t gracefully and with respect…” she stopped again and he could tell she was struggling to speak. “The things I said to her…”

“She’s got to understand that you were just hurt and had drawn a pretty rational conclusion,” he tried, hoping that he was right.

“Even if she did, the way I left things… the point is, one way or the other makes no matter. I have to do this, for her family and for yours.”

He balked at the notion, “What’s my family got to do with this?”

“If we take her and I hide her away, the people from Leben will come sniffing around to find information on her and everyone she knows. Nathan and Elena will be at the top of the list with you not far behind.”

She was right, and if he went by what he heard about the place back at camp the way they asked would be torture to put it nicely. There really wasn’t another option.

Feeling helpless to stop an outright tragedy he opted for a Drake classic; changing the subject.

“So is this why you brought me out here?”

Taking the cue she was able to look up again and once more handed him the binoculars before talking what looked like a map out of another pocket.

“I wanted to get you more familiar with the plan, where your Jeep will be parked and where the exhaust is, and so on.” Looking at the map he realized it was actually a schematic of the building. “You will go in here,” she said pointing to a spot on the paper before showing him where that same location was below them. “Chloe will be somewhere around here,” there was an area that looked like a setup for a prison, “I’ll know exactly where before the mission starts. The tools you need to get down there will be in the back of the Jeep-”

“Wait, do I know how to use these tools?”

“Do you know how to use climbing gear?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes. Afterward you will drive her here.” She took a moment to pull an actual map out and showed a highlighted path that went to the same private airport they had arrived in, only there was a very small runway off to the side and he could only assume it was some sort of secret mercenary spot for when a private airport wasn’t private enough. “You will land here,” another map was pulled out and Sam worried that he was going to have to get a binder by the end of it all. Nadine handed him the new map that he read as being of South Africa, again he wanted to make a joke about her taking Chloe to meet her parents, then he remembered that if all went to plan she would be dead when the expecting mother arrived. His stomach twisted in a few knots as he continued to listen, “You will meet a man there,” once again she reached into her pockets and pulled out more paper, but this time she didn’t give it to him. “This is Sebastien, memorize his face, trust him and only him to pick you up.”

He looked at the picture, it was of a rugged looking white man growing a bit of a beard, he looked nice enough, but something about his eyes told Sam he was like the man Nadine had spoken to before, hardened from the kind of combat that changes a person.

Putting the pictures back she went on, “He has his instructions so you shouldn’t need to do anything, but stay by Chloe’s side. The hotel is owned by several cartels who owe me favors so no one should be able to get to you even if they follow you from here. When Sebastien figures it’s safe to move again there will be a plane to take you to Australia and from there Chloe can choose what to do.”

“I’m with her the whole time huh?”

“Yes. I trust him, but the group he works for sent him as a kind of favor, if he gets wind that I’ve died he may not feel he owes me anything anymore and his people may have an interest in the kind of work being done here. If something seems off, at the hotel or with Sebastien get her out of there. Keep her safe, keep her baby safe.”

Sam swallowed thickly, “It’s yours too.”

“Dead parents don’t have kids.”

To say that Sam took exception to the notion would be an understatement, he was very much his mother’s son, however even as he opened his mouth to say so he stopped and said nothing instead.

He got how hard it was for her to face the end with so much unsaid, to think of the child she would never see would be too much on top of all that. So he sat quietly with her and looked out into the cloying darkness.


	5. Round the World and Back Again

We need to talk.

The four words Chloe could say with absolute certainty that she hated the most in the entire English language and Nadine of all people hit her with them.

This was made worse by the fact that they were both leaving for different flights back to their separate corners of the world after a whole week of treasure hunting, fancy dining with rich clients and fabulous hotel sex. They had spent mornings snuggling together, laughing, talking of the evenings they spent outside of that glorious room, and in all that time Nadine didn’t bring up… whatever this is she wants to talk about. Which made a giant snake slither in Chloe’s stomach because she was pretty sure she knew what it was about; there was only one thing they didn’t speak on the entire weekend…

Chloe placed her luggage by the door and walked over to the small table where Nadine was seated and sat herself across from her partner feeling her stomach tighten even harder when those soft eyes met hers.

Not one to mince words Nadine opened with, “I think I’m done with this.”

Chloe didn’t think her stomach could knot any harder but it did, and it hurt enough for her to have to suppress a wince, “And by this can I assume you mean treasure hunting?” She knew full well that was not the case, but she hoped anyway.

“I mean this…” she paused before gesturing to the room, “this non relationship that we’re in. It’s been great, it really has, but I think I’m getting too old to not think about the long term. I am fine with doing more jobs with you, I just need to start thinking about what I want after all this and I can’t do that seriously if we keep seeing each other at random.”

Chloe didn’t need to hear anymore, she already knew the spiel; _it was fun Chloe, you’re cool, but not what I’m looking for._

  “Say no more, china, I read you loud and clear,” she threw on a smile so forced she worried her skin might crack and got up to get her bags. “Till next time then?”

And with that she left without so much as a backwards glance.

For the rest of the morning, from the time she left until she was seated on her plane she congratulated herself on holding it together so expertly in the face of utter devastation. It was her expertise at this point, and for the two long hours it took for her to be seated she thought back on every time someone had walked out on her, and that no matter how it hurt she had kept it together. This one had been the worst by far, but ever the consummate professional she had left the room head held high.

Then, as the engines roared to life and her plane began to ascend another feeling hit her; anger.

If Nadine wanted out so badly why had she spent seven days screwing her brains out and acting like everything was fine? Did she figure ‘Whelp, may as well take the old girl for a final spin’? And as upsetting as breakups from people she cared about were at least they had all left because they had found something better. Nadine had let her know upfront she didn’t have anyone in mind, but she’d like to break up just in case. Chloe hadn’t even qualified to be her placeholder.

Fury burned in her as she ordered a martini, and somewhere over France, on her third glass she came full circle to her bravery in the face of devastation. Then the harsh truth hit her; it had been devastating. She had known it was likely to happen and it had happened before, but this time was so much worse.

It _hurt_ so much worse.

So as the plane began to approach Denmark she tried to hide the fact that she was crying, but quickly gave up and retreated to the cramped bathroom where she did her best to let her misery out as quietly as possible. How well she succeeded she wasn’t sure, to her own ears every sob that left her was loud and bounced endlessly off the walls, but she couldn’t hold it all in. Determined to have it all out by the time she landed in Norway she used up most of the toilet tissue wiping her eyes and the second there were no more tears in her she washed her face, reapplied her makeup and put her head up high before returning to her seat.

Once she had stepped off the plane she made up her mind not to shed another tear for the woman who didn’t think she was even worth keeping around for the fun of it. Her pride was bruised, but not gone. Chloe Frazer was not a woman who let a relationship ending keep her down, she would get over this, once she decided it that was the end, it was, in fact, over.

Three months was the amount of time needed for her to become amicable enough to call Nadine for a job. As a friend, or, more accurately, a bodyguard since that was the position that needed filling. It had been a while, however she was fully capable of going back to the just friends status that they had enjoyed before France. The client was a hacker looking for stand-ins at an auction that could acquire and transport an item safely to their location. Easy peasy. An auction was also a perfect opportunity for her to showcase exactly what had been given up.

Even to her own mind that was a touch petty, yet it was a label she could live with. In accepting it as such she had no trouble scheduling herself and Nadine to meet for the first time at the auction under the little white lie of not being able to fly in earlier. A small shop in London fitted her with a red evening gown that was on the verge of being indecent, the sides were cut scandalously high yet somehow the back half manage to cup her bottom nicely. Her bosom were pushed up to their optimal height and it showed off how hard she had been working her core as well. Thin black trimming made sure the eye made a line through all these wonders while breaking up the monotony of the red. It was devilishly tight but with some nice heels and a touch of makeup she decided it was completely worth it.

Already she had decided she might take someone home from the party, not that she really wanted to, but to see the look on Nadine’s face would be worth it.

As it turned out, when she arrived at the lavish front doors of the venue it was worthwhile to see the look on the other guests’ faces. When she stepped out of her limousine, rented purely to make a scene, all eyes were on her and she acted as though she couldn’t be bothered to meet their eyes. The fact that this was all to assuage her wounded ego was not lost on her, but when something was deflated it needed a little help to return to its former glory, and by the time she stepped in the door she was better than ever. She felt the eyes of men and women alike follow her to the bar where she was offered more than she could ever actually drink before she even sat down. Feeling amiable she allowed her would be suitors to fawn over her and to possibly over inflate her sense of self-worth because everyone deserved that from time to time. Though she found that after about ten minutes it was old, and it was old because she’d done it all before.

Rather than let that sink in she excused herself to go and try and find the one person who’s reaction would actually make her feel better. Unfortunately she only found Sully.

He had been the one to get them in to this event so she humored his good natured flirtations even in light of her souring mood. However the older man was genuinely happy to see her and his ever infectious grin caused her spirits to lift a touch, but then he asked about her love life, another good natured attempt at flirtation, and she was irritable again.

Given another moment she would have extracted herself from that conversation as well, but it was then and there that Nadine showed up in front of them. It was also the moment that Chloe realized she was a complete idiot to think she was ready to face her again.

If Chloe’s goal was to make Nadine miss what she had then Nadine’s was to make her cry in public. The thing that irked her the most was that her ex-lover didn’t even need to try. The darker woman had worn a simple dark blue silk top and a black pencil skirt that somehow slimmed and showed off her powerful legs, though she suspected the latter part had something to do with the dangerously high heels she was wearing. Her curly hair was lose and longer than Chloe remembered, and there was also the issue of those exposed arms, which sort of made all of her internal attempts at not caring rather worthless. With the outfit one might see on a school teacher she made Chloe feel like a loser in the ‘Want me back’ competition.

“Nadine Ross, my goodness you get more beautiful every time I see you!” exclaimed Sullivan as he gave her a greeting kiss on the cheek.

Nadine smiled, “And you stay the same,” those copper eyes fell on Chloe and she cursed herself vehemently as she felt her body respond to that gaze. “Frazer, it’s been a minute. Thought you might never call.”

Refusing to back down she wrenched on the fake smile she was starting to know too well and leaned in for a chaste kiss as Sullivan had, “You know how it is. I stay busy.”

The scent of Nadine’s perfume was enough to make her mouth water and it absolutely infuriated her that she couldn’t control herself better. There was a brief pause where nothing was said and it was entirely awkward. Desperate to fill the void with something Chloe made a comment about the item they were supposed to be bidding for. Thankfully Nadine responded and Sullivan chimed in because that was all Chloe had to offer, her mind was working too fast to hear exactly what was said so she made a vague excuse about wanting a drink before slipping away.

Not daring to actually go back to the bar she wandered off the main floor and to one of the smaller rooms that had a display showing the order of the night’s auction and small excerpts about the pieces being sold. Desperate to be left alone she looked at the list as if it were vital that she find some detail on it, luckily her concentration on the evenings events gave her an air of being unapproachable. She didn’t take in a single word as her eyes moved because she could not, for the life of her, understand what was going on. Last time this had happened it had been Nathan Drake and she had gotten over him pretty quickly, in fact the second time she had gotten over him the second he saw Elena, so why was this so hard?

“Because I fell in love with her,” she said quietly, the words barely ghosting past her lips.

This time there was nothing in her that rang in disapproval, the words felt right, and also entirely alarming.

She was desperately in love with someone that had broken up with her.

How had that happened? When had it gone from like to love? How in the fuck had she not noticed?

Well she knew how technically. Copious amounts of denial, and now what that had earned her was a front row seat to a total breakdown starring herself as she realized she genuinely loved someone who couldn’t be bothered with her. Something that felt like panic filled her at that moment, fear of the unknown clashed with a determination to never let anyone know how badly she wanted a real relationship with the woman who had left her. Three months to figure it out and of course she only realizes after it’s too late to bail on this stupid job.

Though it did occur to her that it there was still a chance to save herself by just leaving, like she had before. Nadine knew what they were looking for and could finish the job on her own. Sure there were details that she would need to know about the drop-off, however that was something that could be handled through text. She could just turn tail, leave and never deal with this again, denial had dug this hole, but it could also get her out.

Regrettably as tempting as it was, denial’s enabler friend pride wouldn’t let her, she couldn’t run because that would be even worse than admitting it.

There was a moment, a brief moment in time, where Chloe found a way to once more appease her pride. She wasn’t running, she did have things to do. So she would go to take care of those things… Then, before that thought could turn into action she saw Nadine walk by, oblivious to her presence, and go into the bathroom across the hall.

In the vacuum left by her momentarily forgotten escape plan the voice of reason spoke.

_What if I ask her to come back?_

The mere notion of trying to get back with someone who dumped her was appalling and every excuse in the book rose up, nonetheless reason spoke again.

_What if for the first time ever I let myself be vulnerable with someone I care about?_

It was a whim, a sudden urge, less than a mood swing more than a thought, all the same her body just decided to act. Later she would chalk it up to years of acting rashly on the fly, at the moment she swore she had been overcome with madness as she marched to the bathroom and pushed the door open to see Nadine washing her hands.

The abrupt nature of Chloe’s entrance meant Nadine turned to face her with a touch more aggression in her body language than she would otherwise have. Realizing that, Chloe caught the door before it could bounce off the wall and pushed it closed making a point to quietly lock it.

It was too late to back down and she wasn’t sure she could make it through the conversation with the constant interruptions of strangers.

She decided she would take Nadine’s approach and be direct, “Why did you leave?”

Nadine was drying her hands when the question came and she had the audacity to look perplexed, “What?”

“Why did you leave me?” Chloe did everything in her power to not let her voice waver, “Was it something I said or did?”

It was baffling to see Nadine look genuinely confused, “I didn’t leave you Chloe, if you recall you were the one who walked out.”

“Wha- I left because you said we were done!”

“I said I didn’t want to do what we were doing, which was meeting in random hotels around the world at sporadic times decided by you and acting like we were just friends outside of that.”

“You-” she paused because, though she would never admit to it, she had run the conversation over in her head countless times, and Nadine was right, she had never explicitly said she wanted to end their relationship. “The way you put it, it really sounded like you were totally done, with me, with all of it.”

She shrugged, “That may be true, but if you had actually talked to me instead of dashing off to Denmark I would have been able to make myself clear.”

Chloe wanted, very badly, to make a rebuttal and to her utter dismay there wasn’t one to make.

In the silence that followed her heart leapt into her throat as one of the toilets flushed and a plump blonde lady exited a stall looking abashed. With an apologetic smile the woman moved between them to wash her hands then dried them before unlocking the door and leaving, but not before mouthing ‘good luck’ to Chloe.

Letting out a deep sigh Chloe made a sweep of the remaining stalls and locked the door again before rounding on Nadine once more.

“Alright, then. You want us to be official? Is that the condition? Or is it marriage because I can, I mean I would, but must we? Now? It just all seems so mundane and sedentary-”

Nadine smiled and took a step forward taking Chloe’s face in her hands and forcing silver grey eyes to meet copper.

“I don’t care about what we call it as long as it is. You don’t have to be my girlfriend if you don’t want to be called that, I just want to be able to hold you and talk to you whenever I want.”

Her erratic heartbeat slowed as she realized the completely reasonable nature of what was being asked of her. Nadine hadn’t been trying to throw her away, she had been trying to advance their relationship.

How had she gotten it so wrong?

_Ah right, because I’m a selfish dickhead._

“So…” she began slowly, hope daring to show its face, “We accidentally broke up with each other?”

Nadine gave a bemused smile, “Seems like it.”

With a small laugh she leaned back on the wall for support because she was suddenly lightheaded, all this heartache and worry over literally nothing.

“Since we are clearing things up you should know, I love you. I have since India.”

Chloe’s head tilted to the side, “You can’t be serious, is that why you punched me? Because I broke your heart and your trust?”

It was Nadine’s turn to laugh, “Hardly, that was because you were being a bitch, no I mean our _other_ trip to India.”

The memory of it alone made Chloe hot all over, she knew exactly what Nadine meant, and she could understand, as she thought back on it, how the day could lead to something more.

If she were to be equally honest she had probably been hopelessly in love before that, a fact her pride would not allow her to say, however a fair concession was to reciprocate the sentiment.

Stepping forward she reached for Nadine’s hand and the other woman gave it, her eyes unreadable, “In the name of clearing things up, I love you too.” It was shocking to Chloe how easy it was to say versus how hard it had been to admit.

Nadine smiled, and kissed her, softly at first, but the sudden closeness after months apart made Chloe deepen it, needing the feel and taste of her. Distantly she was aware they would eventually have to enter a room full of people again, however she couldn’t help but ruffle Nadine’s hair a little bit. And when her once again lover pushed her against the side of the stalls, deepening the kiss and bringing them flush against each other, she genuinely considered never leaving the bathroom.

“Do you have any idea how badly I want you out of this dress?” Nadine growled in her ear, and really what did it matter if a hundred debutants couldn’t use the bathroom for an hour or so?

“We should leave,” Chloe mumbled into their kiss.

“We have a job to do,” Nadine said in a rush.

“This can _not_ wait,” and she meant it.

Without another word Nadine extracted herself from their entangled position and pulled her along behind as she left the bathroom and making a beeline for Sully. On the way Chloe noticed the plump woman from before looking at her hopefully, she couldn’t keep a small smile off her face as she gave the woman a slight nod and got an excited thumbs up in return.

They passed their task off to a completely bewildered Sully and took the rented limo to Chloe’s hotel. Even though Sully did as he was asked and there was quite the generous timeline on actually turning in the item, they spent so much time engrossed in each other they almost missed it.

They really had needed to talk.


	6. Doctor and Patient

Doctor Mila Baumer sat back in her chair and stared at the screen in front of her. There before her were countless hours of research all attached to the email she was supposed to be sending to her employers, instead, for what seemed like the hundredth time, she returned it to the draft folder. With a sigh she leaned back in her plush chair and played distractedly with her hair, as she bit her lip trying her best to come up with some way to expedite the process she had been working on this entire time.

When she released her hair and realized a few long, blonde strands had come with her hand she growled in frustration, the worry was going to give her an ulcer and she genuinely couldn’t afford to get sick. Angrily she typed a few commands into her computer and almost instantly video feed of Chloe Frazer sleeping soundly in her containment room popped up. Only upon seeing her did she realize what a mistake it was because Chloe was just a talking embodiment of her stress.

Mila was a smart woman, no a brilliant woman, and despite their limited interactions Chloe seemed to go out of her way to make her feel like an idiot. At this point she had just instructed all of her underlings to not even speak to her since she had a certain penchant to doing it to them as well. The woman was clever and a fast talker, meaning that likely everything out of her mouth was a lie.

But if it wasn’t there would be more than her career on the line.

Admittedly when Leben had first hired her to investigate methods of artificial insemination she had assumed they wanted some sort of master race, Boys from Brazil, clone nonsense. She certainly didn’t invest in such things, especially not with the specimen that those types tended to prefer, all recessive genes inbred into barely functioning embryos. However her moral compass absolutely had a price tag, and anyone who would fund her personal research into eugenics would get her services. Including this sideways, sketchy organization, granted she wasn’t an expert obstetrics, but she had several PhD’s and had studied it a touch when she lived in the United States.

Though to be completely fair to herself she had never expected the crackpot experiments they had her do to bear fruit. The first statue they had given her looked like an ivory trinket carved by a first year art student and the story behind it seemed even more amateur. Mila hadn’t expected any of the results she got; barren women becoming pregnant after one night of sex was complete madness. She wouldn’t believe it even now if she hadn’t confirmed the earlier studies herself. Then came the scramble to try and become more fluent in a profession it turned out she knew next to nothing about, at least not near enough to understand the science behind the magic. In all honesty she should have quit a long time ago, probably back when the first statue had crumbled to dust, either due to age or being out of juice. And not because Leben was kidnapping people to make them breed in experiments, but because honestly for all her knowledge she was out of her depth.

Against her better judgment she stayed because the money was just too good to pass up, so instead of cutting her losses she threw herself into studying obstetrics because Leben requested, read; demanded, a foolproof way of telling if a woman had conceived naturally or not. The process left her anxious, frazzled and sent her to bed with migraines every night, and worse yet made little progress, so when the statue broke it had been a monumental relief. Unfortunately they still wanted their commission, so in light of the fact that there was no one to test the process she had simply told them she had completed it. A lie to both get them off her back and allow her time to work on her own projects. Then Leben by some means got their hands on another one, and some crazy how had managed to find a woman affected by it.

All Mila knew about Chloe was that she was one of two who had gone to collect the new statue and that, prior to her abduction, had been in a relationship with a woman.

The signs were there. It seemed legitimate. It was completely possible that the couple had sex not knowing that doing so while making any sort contact with the statue would result in pregnancy. And if it had been activated as a result of their coupling then without a single doubt this was the work of the effigy.

If that had been the end of it then things would be fine. If the story ended with some woman coming in pregnant after being in a monogamous lesbian relationship then she could send off her findings no problem. The method she had to tell worked, at least she was relatively sure it did, it just took about a year to get the results. Even now there were computers working around the clock trying to match several hundred markers with that of previous subjects.

If the world were simple she could continue in her lie of omission, allow her employers to think that her method only took days and just send her email to Leben telling them that their captive was the genuine article.

But the world had sent her Chloe Fucking Frazer. The short tempered, foulmouthed slag who spent all of her time undermining everything they did. Answering every question about her health flippantly and purposefully increasing her heart rate when they needed resting numbers and did as little as possible when they needed her exerted. Worst of all she wasn’t allowed to force her to behave because Leben had expressly forbidden it. So the woman defied them and ran her mouth, and Mila was pretty sure everything she said was a lie.

Unfortunately one of the things she said was that she had lied to their doctor and had in fact cheated on her girlfriend.

That would make the pregnancy unremarkable indeed.

It was _probably_ a lie. Chloe had likely realized immediately when she didn’t have sex with a man, was pregnant, then kidnapped, that the cause for such interest was the origin of the pregnancy and decided to try and throw them off the scent.

But she wouldn’t bet her job, research and life on _probably_.

So instead of sending off her report like she had intended she sat day after day almost sending her research off and opting not to. She couldn’t risk it, not after all the failures that had happened already. The most important being her inability to figure out what sustained the pregnancy. Almost all of them failed after a month or two and most failed in the first few weeks. The only connection that she could find between the lengths of time before miscarriage was rather absurd. The link seemed to be, and even thinking on it now caused her to scoff to the empty room, was affection. Or love lacking a better term, but that seemed so far off the path of science that she refused to give it further thought. The subjects who had some sort of connection prior to copulation lasted the longest. However the male subjects were usually disposed of after a light battery of tests and without fail, within days of their death the fetus would go from healthy to dead.

It was less than a guess and more of a hunch since there were only two pairs that had any sort of affiliation prior, and of those forced together only one formed any sort of connection afterwards. Yet those were the three longest surviving pregnancies.

Mila scoffed again and rolled her eyes. She’d rather send her email than try and sell her bosses on the ‘love conquers all’ pitch.

A few words drifted to her ears from the speakers, they were disjointed and a few were in a language she didn’t know. Chloe was having dreams, or nightmares, again and that meant that she would wake up any moment.

Looking forward to talking to the woman like she did a punch to the face she sighed, called for her lab techs and wrenched a smile on her face because as much as Chloe got under her skin she’d be damned if she let her know it.

 

* * *

 

Chloe woke with a start in what she assumed was the middle of the night, well, in Finland at least. Long ago she had lost the ability to tell the time of day, but she had been waking at midnight before being captured so she felt it was safe to assume the habit continued. A heavy sweat and a racing heart told her she had been jostled from another nightmare she couldn’t remember.

With a sigh she looked around her cell, or her ‘room’ as her captors called it as if the name change would fool her. It was a square space in the center of a larger room with clear bars, a bed and a sectioned off bathroom, which was why until her last moment on earth she could call it a cell. That and the way she felt constantly watched even though there was no one in the room surrounding it, at least there appeared not to be, until the lights came on the area beyond the bars was pitch black.

She was absolutely sure that there were cameras watching her every move and more than likely some listening devices, but at this late date it didn’t matter, they had seen her run the gambit of embarrassing human bodily functions. Sitting up she groaned as the child within her found its seating right on her bladder, she got up shuffled to the bathroom which was a section of her cell that had four walls and a door around a sink and toilet. It infuriated her because those walls were just as see through as the ones that made up the bars of her cell; it was a cruel joke to someone who only wanted one second of actual privacy.

Afterwards she went back to her bed and sat down refusing to think on the feelings that would make her the world’s biggest pregnancy cliché; sure she felt weepy, fat and ugly, but if no one she cared about was around to see, how could it matter?

She knew her doctor would be in soon to check on her.

Well.

‘Doctor’.

The small woman was probably a doctor the same way Dr. Pepper was, but unlike everything else in the room she wasn’t able to prove she wasn’t what she said.

Whatever time it actually was, her internal clock told her it wouldn’t be long until someone came to see her and, as if to prove it, the dim lights in the outer room began to flicker to life. To get her day started Chloe stretched her arms and began to rotate the stiffness out of her neck when her eyes fell on her blanket. Rolled to being too short so she could sleep in the cold sterile room, the blanket was made up so when she closed her eyes she could pretend it was Nadine’s arm wrapped around her, nestled between her breasts and the swell of her stomach. Quickly she grabbed it and shook it out, because in the light of her florescent mornings she hated seeing just how weak she had been in the dark.

The clang of a metallic door told her Doctor Baumer was on her way so she resumed rolling her neck around before making a laughable attempt at reaching for her feet. Sharp footsteps echoed through the room until the short, weirdly pleasant blonde came before her cell door flanked by two lackeys. The woman was just a bit over four feet tall and in a lab coat she looked like a primary school kid playing dressup.

“Good morning,” she said with an etched on smile and a subtle accent that Chloe highly suspected was Polish.

Their relationship had always been a rocky one, Chloe did everything in her power to irritate the woman, at first to try and rebel against her captors, but now just because she was bored. The smiles her doctor used to give were once far more strained, but now that she had given up trying to escape anytime someone came into her cell they were a touch more genuine. Though never truly real.

Like she had been doing for several months Chloe just sat patiently on her bed and waited for it all to be over, sort of like her pregnancy. She had no idea what was waiting for her on the other side of this, Baumer always dodged the question when asked, but she highly doubted that they would send her on her way with her newborn and ask nicely that she not tell anyone.

The cell door opened and, when Chloe made no move to meet her, the doctor turned and invited her helpers in, both bedecked in scrubs and surgical masks; she was sure it was more out of wanting to hide than actual necessity.

“How did you sleep?” Baumer asked, her insufferable smile firmly in place.

Defiant as ever Chloe knew Baumer knew that she would never, a day in her life, let it be that easy. This time she chose silence to protest the question while the two men began checking her vitals.

The woman sighed, “Your silence only makes things harder on you. I know your dreams must be upsetting given how you toss and turn, but if you can remember them I may be able to help you.”

“I’m not in the habit of making things easy for myself,” she said tersely, before a thermometer was shoved in her mouth.

She purposefully kept it from touching anything inside her mouth knowing it would cause the readings to fail. They never stopped her and she didn’t know why, but they kept trying so she supposed the plan was to wait for her to be less petulant about it.

They were in for a wait.

“You are quickly approaching your due date,” Baumer said, snapping her out of her reflection.

“Still no word on what happens after that, huh?” she joked.

The doctor looked at her seriously for a moment, “You know for someone who doesn’t answer questions you sure like to ask them.”

Chloe laughed, “I was going to say the same thing about you.”

A very measured smile cam over the other woman’s face before she gave a look to the two men, which apparently told them to drop what they were doing and leave because that is what they did.

“Is that what you want Ms. Frazer? Quid pro quo?”

“Are you offering?”

“I am.”

“Then tell me what happens after I get out of here.”

“As soon as you tell me the truth about how you came to conceive this child.”

“I already told you, met a guy at a bar, got drunk, things got out of hand,” she recited swiftly.

She knew Baumer didn’t believe her and probably never would, which was fine. As long as the doubt was there it would inevitably fuck up whatever research they were doing and it was the little victories that counted.

“Oh, so part of this truce is that the answers get to be false? Alright then, after the baby is born we will put you both in a hot air balloon and see how far you can float.”

Chloe chuckled, “Y’see you don’t know if I’m lying or not, but being the clever lass that I am, I suspect you are.”

“You told our doctor in Germany that there was no way you could possibly be pregnant since you hadn’t been with a man, and now suddenly you recall exactly what happened.”

“I didn’t want to tell a random man about an affair, it was none of his business.”

“There is no reason to lie to a complete stranger you will never see again.”

That made her laugh outright, “Wow, you really don’t know me very well at all.”

Baumer sighed and yanked the thermometer out of her mouth not even bothering to look at the reading before tossing it onto a tray that had been left behind by one of her assistants.

“Okay, let’s try this. I don’t know what they plan to do with you after, honestly I haven’t bothered to ask, but if you keep insisting that this is a natural pregnancy and I choose to believe you and report as such I cannot imagine the outcome will be good.”

“I can’t imagine it will be good either way.”

“I can imagine that it will look even grimmer for your baby.”

Those words made Chloe fall silent. Baumer seemed to realize she had broken through and didn’t push any further. Instead she slid a pressure cuff on her patient and reveled in the lack of resistance put up. For the second time since she found out she was pregnant Chloe was faced with the choice of having to do something to preserve the life within her, would she continue to lie just to be the defiant, indignant prisoner she had always been if it meant her baby would have its life cut short? Was she willing to stuff every feeling of hatred she had for the people in this building and tell the truth, to play along for the sake of her child?

The more she thought about it the more she honestly felt the answer was yes. And as much as that should have been a comfort, as proud as she felt she should have been for being so selfless she felt resentment boil within her because this baby had caused nothing but trouble. Her old self was still screaming at her because she even bothered to keep it, but there was this new self that she was coming more and more to think of as maternal instinct that didn’t care about anything else other than the life inside her. She knew that the child was hers and Nadine’s therefore, at any cost, she would do whatever she must to keep it alive, even if it was only for a few days longer.

“Quid pro quo,” she said, getting the blonde’s immediate attention, “am I having a boy or a girl?”

Baumer seemed mistrustful of the offer, but straightened in her seat, “It’s a girl.”

Chloe couldn’t hold back a smile, somehow she had known that, she had seen it in her mind in a time that felt so distant it might not have happened.

“Her other parent is my partner, who is also a woman.”

Baumer seemed taken aback by her bluntness, and then a suspicious look came over her face, Chloe knew no matter what she said the doctor was unlikely to believe her so she just gave the woman a shrug and hoped her honestly could buy her child’s life.

Without another question, the tiny doctor left and when she did Chloe flopped back onto her bed knowing the only thing left to do was wait for breakfast. There was also her daily walk to look forward to, which was a nice way of putting the fact that she was allowed an hour on a treadmill that faced a wall with a painting on it.

For the rest of the day she did as she was told and her would-be doctor said nothing more on the matter of her child’s parentage or what was to become of Chloe, which suited her just fine. Feeling like an animal in a cage she ate her food and did her exercise without complaint, at the very least she was sure they were taking the best care of her they could in deference to the baby. There were more test, and more, what she presumed were, doctors, but just like the assistants before they kept their faces covered and their mouths closed, regardless she took it all in stride.

Outwardly in any case, inwardly she was scanning every wall, ceiling tile, nook and cranny again for the millionth time trying to come up with an escape plan, but her limited mobility completely aside, there was no viable way out that she could see. It didn’t stop her from looking, it never would, but it did make her feel a sense of hopelessness that started to set in as what she guessed to be evening approached. She wasn’t sure, but she supposed that was the reason the lights around her cell were dimmed about an hour before they were shut off entirely. The proper protocol was for her to wander over to her bed and begin her sad ritual of setting up the covers and pretending the only person she wanted to see in the world was there.

On this evening she didn’t, instead she sat slumped against the bars looking contemptuously at the stainless steel bed with its undeniably soft mattress and hating it more than she had hated any inanimate object ever. There was no reason to dedicate so much of her evening to the task, there were some books underneath the bed, but she had read them all and they were all toilet paper flimsy so most of the pages were torn. The act of defiance was pointless, but it made her feel ever so slightly better, so she did it, and continued to do so after the lights had been turned off.

There was a moment where she almost drifted off, but snapped awake due to a loud electrical thrum, when her eyes opened nothing had changed and she peered into the dark with a spike of anger. It was partially because the twang in her back was a mocking reminder of how pointless her rebelliousness had been and now she had to figure out how to get off the floor in the dark. Primarily it was the way she had responded to them turning the lights off on her like a bird that quieted when a blanket was thrown over its cage and the fact that somewhere they were watching knowing on some small level they had won.

Now tired and irate she moved to get up, but was suddenly held against the bars by an arm so familiar it caused her to stifle the scream she had been about to let out. 

A well-known voice came from behind her, “I only have a few minutes before they get the cameras back. We’re going to get you out of here tomorrow morning, get a good night’s sleep and be ready to move first thing.”

Chloe’s heart thudded in her chest, faster than it had when she thought she was being attacked, “Nadine?” she asked even though she knew, because how could it possibly be. Who even knew she had been taken?

“Ja, it’s me, but I can’t stay, just be ready and don’t let them take you out of this room,” she tried to leave, but Chloe clutched the arm around her tightly.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded. The pride she’d always had about never asking for help melted away because there was nothing she had that she wasn’t willing to sacrifice to get the other woman to stay.

“I have to, but don’t worry, you’ll be out of here in a few hours, you have my word,” Nadine said softly, pulling her arm gently from Chloe’s grip. She relented only because she wanted to turn and see that she wasn’t hallucinating. The only lights anywhere were the very weak ones that outlined her bed and her bathroom in case she needed to navigate there in the night, it unfortunately wasn’t enough cut through thick darkness that existed outside of her cell.

Chloe was about to call out into the darkness again when a familiar hand reached in and touched her face and she worried that it had to be fake because her nostrils filled with the smell that she associated most with love, the scent of Nadine after several days in a jungle fresh from running and jumping through countless obstacles. How could she be here smelling like that? Though she wasn’t exactly sure where here was.

“I…” Nadine paused, “I’m so sorry. About everything. And just know I love you, I never stopped loving you. Not for a second.”

The hand slipped away into the darkness as did even the silhouette of a figure, sitting in the dark alone Chloe began to wonder if she were actually still asleep and merely imagining the moment. After climbing to her feet and finally making it to her bed she decided that she had probably dreamt the entire thing only to wake staring into the dark. It was a fever dream brought on by desperate yearning, of course she had wished that Nadine would show up smelling like adventure and apologetic, that had been a fantasy even before the kidnapping, but that she actually turn up at this juncture was just madness.

Nadine left and didn’t look back, and given what happened she had been right to do so.

With acknowledgement that the crazy thing was crazy she still made up her mind to be ready to leave first thing in the morning.


	7. If it Looks Like a Duck…

“Do not say what I think you are about to say, Liam,” Chloe snapped, her heart thrumming painfully loud in her ears, as if trying to drown out the news she already knew he was going to give.

Liam, a long time friend and off the books doctor, had been her last hope for a sane answer. She had been to Germany to see her previous employer’s doctor, but he had told her the impossible, so just for a laugh she bought a pregnancy test from a local drug store, and when that thing had malfunctioned she took a sudden and rather panicked trip down to Australia to get looked at properly. Though they had never spent a tremendous amount of time together Liam had been treating her wounds even before she knew Nathan and as such held her trust more than another health care physician would. He was also another Indian Australian which made her feel a faint spark of kinship that she never had with anyone prior to meeting other thieves. His words carried weight, and if he said the thing she was dreading then it would be real, it would be official, all while being impossible and she wasn’t sure how to handle that.

One thick eyebrow rose as he looked up from the folder in his hands, “You don’t want me to tell you?”

Shaking her head Chloe pointed accusingly at the folder, “Not if you plan to tell me I’m pregnant.”

His handsome face broke into a smile, “So you already knew,” he shrugged, sat on a small wheeled stool and slid himself to the corner of the exam room to place the folder atop a stack of others.

“There is nothing to know, there is no way I’m pregnant,” she snapped, feeling a building hysteria.

He spun in his chair, making him seem like a big kid, “We both know ways for this to happen, Chloe. It’s no big deal, you know I can take care of it.”

She did, and he had for her before when she was young and reckless enough to hook up with random men without any protection. Her jaw clenched at the thought, there would be a few weeks of recovery and she would need to come up with an excuse to be gone so long, Nadine was waiting back at their apartment in Finland and already her trip to Germany was taking too long with this detour. Chloe chewed her lip as she considered saying that her mother had an emergency, but knowing her girlfriend she would be on the next plane out to help, especially if it had her gone for this long.

Realizing that she was already planning how to lie and cover up this incident from the only person she had promised herself to never lie to again was genuinely sobering. Snapping back to the present she saw Liam scribbling on a clipboard, “Is there a time you prefer? I can’t do it today, but later this week I can get you in.”

“I… yeah, after noon, I guess.” Her words felt foreign and hollow, the surreal feeling never left, how was she here? How was this her life right now?

He nodded, “Alright, how about Friday?”

Friday was two days away, in two days this entire inexplicable nightmare could be over, “Yeah,” she said, still dazed and rubbing her forehead lightly.

Noticing her mood for the first time Liam stopped and took her hand to get her attention, “You okay? Were you thinking about keeping this one?”

“Keeping?” The thought hadn’t had a chance to occur, “I… this is just sudden…”

Liam turned to his computer perched by his stack of folders, “If you want to push it a little further out-”

“No, this news is… it’s fucking bazaar is what it is!” she snapped, her breaths coming quick and shallow.

“Hey, hey, relax it’ll be alright. Is the dad still around? Is it something you want to take up with him?”

“There is no dad! That’s just it Liam there is no father, I haven’t slept with a man in several years!” her breathing growing more erratic by the second.

“Er, I hate to have to say this, but in your line of work sometimes-”

“I know better than anyone the dangers of being a female thief, but like I said no man has touched me going on five years now and furthermore I haven’t even been on a job in almost a year. Not as a thief anyway, everything’s been legal, no unsavory characters or back alley deals, and my girlfriend has been with me at every single one so there is no way-”

Then, like the first drops of rain before a storm, small facts began to click into place. The statue. It was kind of insane, but so was this immaculate conception, they’d returned from Greece with the statue and had celebrated with wine and a lot of sex. Sex she couldn’t quite remember the exact details of which was unusual since their post job sex was always memorable. All she could recall was holding that statue and Nadine barely being able to keep her hands out from under her shirt long enough for them to get back into their hotel room.

Liam was back to spinning on his stool while she thought, “Looks like you figured it out huh?” When she didn’t answer he went back to his computer, “I have another appointment to get to, so imma put you down for Friday at one. Do you ah, need a doctor’s note for the girlfriend? Maybe I call her and say you had surgery or something? I could even give you a cool little scar as proof.”

Without answering Chloe turned and left, making it all the way to her car before she realized she had moved. For almost another hour she sat in the parking lot trying to rationalize what had happened, and when that failed she began to slowly realize that in all likely hood she was pregnant with Nadine’s child.

An ice cold wave of fear hit her along with that thought, however she weirdly wasn’t able to identify what it was a fear of. The fear of having to lie, or worse yet being found out? Or was it the fear that this was something miraculous and she was about to end it without fully understanding what it even meant?

Then again it could have been the simple fact that she was about to do what she always seemed to do. Lie and cover up that lie with more lies and run away from the truth at full sprint never looking back.

As of late she had made a lot of changes, personally and professionally, and, though she would never tell her, Nadine was a big part of that. She wanted to do better, be better, she wanted to be someone worthy of the loyalty shown to her and to slip back into old habits…

But these were extenuating circumstances weren’t they?

This wasn’t her fault and as such she shouldn’t be subject to the backlash that was going to come with the perceived truth. No matter how she presented the issue she was going to look like a cheater and telling the truth would make her look like a liar, and a bad one at that. Old Chloe was still inside of her trying to figure out what the conflict even was, there was no upside of being honest, but there was this new Chloe, this weirdly unctuous side that felt like Nadine should know the truth no matter what it cost because lying would cost more to both of them in so many ways. This new side made her old self furious because nothing was based on fact, it was all sentiment and reaction and she was not used to having that occur in situation in which her best interest was not being served.

The feeling followed her back to her hotel, the old and new self having an endless loop of a battle the entire way. Her sleep was fractured and full of sparse snippets of how her choices could turn out for the worst no matter what she did. In the morning she faced her day with less than an hour of uninterrupted sleep and a very real decision to make. If she wanted to lie and commit then it meant calling Nadine then and there to tell whatever story would cover the amount of time she would be gone.

Mind made up she grabbed her cell off the dresser.

She would have to lie, there was no other way, the truth was absurd and she wasn’t ready to lose the only person she had loved this deeply to what was probably some sort of freak mutant baby.

With every intention of doing just that she got as far as the first ring before she ended the call, because that new meddlesome Chloe asked, _but what if it is the marvel it seems to be? What if it is actually your and Nadine’s child?_

That thought had her standing stock still in her hotel room trying to actually piece together what that meant.

What _did_ it mean?

A sneaking suspicion suggested it meant that she wanted to keep it. Chloe had never faced the idea of pregnancy with someone she actually cared for. To her utter horror in that new light she found herself not only unwilling to lie to Nadine, but unwilling to go through with the abortion.

The notion was so exasperating she chalked it up to hormones and decided that there was plenty of time to call Nadine later, all she had to do was keep her appointment on Friday and the rest would work itself out.

Except Friday came and went with her still moping around her hotel and no phone calls save one to her mother. She didn’t tell her what was going on, but it had been a comfort to hear her voice.

Denial was the only thing getting her through her day since thinking the problem through only lead to that infuriating trail of thought so circular it made her dizzy. That same denial saw her on a plane back home and by the time she got out of her taxi and stood in front of her apartment it finally released its hold.

At that point she had to face the fact that she had traveled across the world with no plan leaving her with one option.

_Not only one, you could still run._

Old Chloe was not going down without a fight.

And she genuinely did consider hopping back in the taxi and heading to the nearest clinic to just clear this whole mess away. Unfortunately new Chloe argued her to inaction long enough for the taxi to pull off and Nadine to appear on the balcony above her.

“Welcome back,” Nadine said with a smile on her face, one Chloe returned automatically because despite everything, seeing her girlfriend made her heart flutter like it had when they had first kissed. She wondered if it was nerves about what had to be said, or possibly the realization that it was quite likely after this day they wouldn’t be together anymore.

Whatever it was Chloe grabbed her bags and went inside. Nadine was waiting for her with that kiss that could stop time and make that heart flutter come back tenfold. It was that moment that old Chloe began to panic, because she couldn’t lose this, she couldn’t lose her. The desperation turned the kiss from a greeting to a course of action, Chloe found herself clawing at Nadine’s shirt, needing to feel as much of her as possible immediately.

“This is how we say hello now is it?” Nadine panted as Chloe began to eagerly nibble at her neck.

“It is when you’ve had a month like mine, love,” she replied before pushing the other woman back to the bedroom.

Nadine seemed a bit flustered with how suddenly she found herself down to her underwear, but rallied quickly enough to reciprocate. Chloe let herself drown in the sensation because her new self was still chattering away about coming clean. Then Nadine pressed against her and that weird flutter blossomed in her heart and new Chloe was thrown unceremoniously out of her mind. There was no way she would risk losing this woman.

How could she even think it?

She had traveled the world and sampled quite a selection of what it had to offer and Nadine was the only person who made her feel the way she did now. Hell the only person to come close was Nathan and what she had felt for him wasn’t even a fraction of what she had with Nadine.

Chloe made love to her feeling sure of herself, every touch and every kiss making her more so. By the time she came she had never been so certain of a course of action, there was no imaginable way she was going to tell the one person she was terrified to lose something that would drive her away indefinitely.

Then came that soft, subtle post sex twilight where the sun came in to framed her lover just right, letting new Chloe pose the a question that she couldn’t help but entertain.

_What if you tell her and she stays?_

Eyes heavy she looked at Nadine’s sleeping face and suddenly she could see her; their daughter. She saw a future where somehow Nadine was in her arms and so was the baby, with dark curls and olive complexion and beautiful copper eyes. In her mind it was all so clear, so sure, it felt as real as the weight of Nadine’s arm draped over her. The thought of their child made that fluttering feeling return and then some, it blossomed into something warm and comfortable in her chest.

Tentatively she placed her hand on top of Nadine’s and placed them both on her stomach.

Tears fell and her guts twisted and writhed because after all that surety she knew what she was going to do when Nadine woke up.

Internally it was a nightmare, and it kept her from sleeping at all so instead she got up, unpacked her suitcase and tried to think of how to break the news to her girlfriend that they were about to be mothers. Somehow.

Regrettably all the time she spent thinking didn’t provide her with anything of use, so when Nadine woke an hour later all the worry that had been coiled within now churned so furiously she thought she might throw up. The only thing that kept her from changing her mind again was a very real desire to meet the beautiful child she had envisioned, although old Chloe was screaming how that had been a hallucination, she still held to it.

When her lover finally woke Chloe was seated at the kitchen table, though in a different location the notion of having such a serious discussion again in the same place seemed appropriate. It was just like the last time they had accidentally broken up and on some level she hoped this would be the same; that the disaster she was sure was about to befall them at the news she was going to share would turn out to not be all that bad in the end.

She was sure that wasn’t going to be the case, but hope at this point couldn’t hurt anything.

“Nadine?” Chloe called as the other woman exited the bedroom looking beautiful in only a sports bra and shorts.

“Hmm?” was the sleepy response that came as she rubbed her eyes, yawning deeply.

“Sit with me a moment,” she phrased it as such because no matter how she wished the two scenarios to play out similarly she still hated the phrase ‘We need to talk’.

Nadine sat across from her still pawing sleepily at her eyes making Chloe smile sadly. The battle between inner selves still raged on, and everything in her would rather run and hide than open her mouth, but she did it anyway.

 _Best to rip the Band-Aid right off then_ , she thought morosely.

“I’m pregnant,” Chloe announced somehow because her mouth had gone dry the second she had opened it, probably her body’s last ditch effort to get her to stop.

Nadine froze and lowered her hand as the words sunk in, “Sorry?”

“I’m pregnant and I can promise you I have no idea how.”

“You… what?”

Chloe could see Nadine’s entire body begin to tense up and she knew the other woman’s sleepy mind was starting to catch up to what was happening. The incorrect conclusions she was drawing were something she couldn’t stop with any amount of explaining, but be damned if she didn’t try.

“I saw a doctor on my last trip and I-”

“You fuck someone else, come home pregnant, have the audacity to come home and get me into bed with you before you drop this shit in my lap?”

“I never slept with anyone else, I haven’t since we were first together, not even when we broke up,” Chloe replied calmly, the truth of her words surprised even herself, making her realize the hold Nadine had on her from the very beginning.

Nadine bristled visibly and she knew this was going to get worse before it got better, “You tell me you’re having a baby and you want me to believe I somehow was involved in that? How much of an idiot do you think I am?” Chloe opened her mouth to reply, but the motion made Nadine snatch herself out of her seat making the chair tumble to the floor. “Don’t you dare try and explain how this obvious case of you cheating is not exactly that.”

Despite how much her words would escalate the already volatile situation she spoke anyway, “I know how this looks, I do, trust me, but you know me. Do you really think my plan to cheat on you is to sleep with someone, get pregnant, keep the child and then try to convince you that it’s yours? Does that sound like me, at all, to you?”

“Then what is your explanation?!”

“I think… honestly I think it was the statue,” when Nadine looked at her in confusion she elaborated, “The fertility statue.”

To her intense sorrow those words just made tears well up and fall from her love’s eyes.

“Oh you have got to be joking, that’s the story? A magic statue got you pregnant, by me, without either of us knowing?”

Taking a deep breath Chloe had to admit, hearing it said aloud made it sound so much more ridiculous than it already did.

“I don’t have another explanation, I don’t know how this happened.”

Nadine furiously wiped away her tears, shaking her head a sardonic look on her features, “I knew something like this would probably happen when we hooked up, but it had been long enough where I thought ‘Hey maybe she isn’t some sex thirsty bitch running around with whoever’s closest, but my God was I wrong.”

“I am fully aware how insane it sounds, but it’s the truth. I swear I was never with anyone else.”

“Never mind how you come home still pregnant as if I’d want to raise it! This is such a shit thing to do I am almost curious who you are so infatuated with that you would be brazen enough to come into this house with his child.”

“I told you there is no one else!” Chloe shouted, even though she was doing everything in her power to try and keep calm to prevent things from getting worse.

“I actually cannot believe you right now,” she said giving her such a look of disgust it hurt Chloe to even meet her gaze.

“Nadine-”

“Don’t!” she yelled before she threw her toppled chair so hard it put a hole in the wall. “Don’t fucking talk to me, not another word! I knew this would happen! I fucking knew! And somehow you managed to exceed the worst possible scenario of you being a complete dickhead! How can you actually come back here with a bastard in you and try to make this okay between us? What is actually going through your mind- don’t answer,” she snapped seeing that Chloe was once again going to try to explain. “I don’t actually give a fuck what you were thinking.”

She stormed away and Chloe let her, feeling that even with the hole in the wall it had gone slightly better than expected, then she heard the angry slamming of drawers and knew before she even got up what was happening. Quietly she stood and went to the bedroom to see Nadine clearing out her drawers of clothes; she closed her eyes and took deep breaths because all the ways this was hurting Nadine were hurting her and then some. She wanted to try to explain again, to beg, but she knew better, she knew it would only make things worse and she didn’t think she could handle worse.

Without another word Nadine dressed, finished packing and pushed past her to the door.

In that frigid silence old Chloe broke free and the sight of Nadine leaving, probably for good, made her unable to see sense, so against her better judgment she called out, “Please don’t go.”

Nadine turned to her and the look in her eyes was fire and fury, “And do what? Stay here with my whore of an ex-girlfriend to raise a child she clearly intends to keep regardless of my feelings on the matter? I deserve better than that, better than you; if I never see you again it will be too soon.”

New Chloe was simply proud that she didn’t break down into tears until the door was slammed in her face.

The old her was still in shock that she had said anything at all leaving her with the question; was it worth it?

When nighttime fell and she was in bed alone she couldn’t help feel like the answer was no.


	8. Rescue

In the tense hours prior to dawn Sam sat nervously outside his tent waiting impatiently for the word that everyone was ready to move out. There were men and women moving swiftly, yet calmly, to complete whatever pregame checks they needed. Sam chalked their casual nature to them being professionals, but he could hardly understand it, this was going to be war and that wasn’t something he was used to. Sure he had been in firefights, but a mission where the intent was to leave someone behind dead…

He stood, unable to handle the silence another second, and walked over to the nearest unoccupied group of people which happened to be Nadine’s acquaintances. They were both reading at a small table covered with the remains of their dinner which had been little more than rations and water.

There was the one man who had his ridiculous goggles propped up on his head, and the other surly one who still looked so while reading. He knew one of them was Mike, but since he didn’t know which one he stuck his hand out to the gruff man with the goggles, “Sam Drake, pleasure.”

The man had been reading a thick stack of papers and seemed surprised to see the hand, he stared at it for a moment before he shook it, “Jordan.”

Sam took that to mean it was his name, and since he didn’t seem to want to share any more than that he turned to the man he was now fairly sure he could identify, “And you’re Mike right?”

One minute he was standing before a graying older man reading a book and the next his face was being slammed into the table and a knife was being pressed painfully hard into his jugular.

“And who is it that’s been tellin’ ya names, eh?”

“Nadine!” he shouted as both an answer and a call for help.

“Let the kid go old man, he’s harmless,” Jordan said casually, never looking up from his reading.

“Was’ the point of code names then? People goin’ around shouting credentials,” he grumbled as he sat back in his chair and put his knife away.

The move was so fast and complete Sam wasn’t even sure there ever had been a knife. Shaken he stood and looked between the two men not knowing what to say.

Jordan hooked his boot around a chair that was off to the side of their table and pulled it up, “What’s bothering you fella?”

“Besides Old Man Stabby here?” he asked, eyeing Mike warily.

Jordan chuckled, “Yeah, besides him.”

“Only my dad goes by Old Man Stabby, call me Thatcher.” For the first time Sam registered he had a rather pronounced British accent and became very curious how the two men knew each other.

Sam sat in the chair and pulled it purposefully away from the older man, “Nothing really, just ready to get things started.”

“You and me both,” grumbled Mike as he turned the page.

Jordan merely nodded and smiled, “Pre mission jitters, been a while since I felt like that, kinda envy you.”

“How many missions have you been on?”

“Who even knows at this point?” he said noncommittally, “you seen any of this?” he asked pointing to his stack of papers.

“What is it?”

“Copy of some of the notes from the facility. It’s a rough catalogue of all the shit they’re up too.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, the man didn’t seem like the type to be too interested in why he was being asked to destroy a building as long as he got to destroy one.

After carefully assessing that Jordan was less excitable than his companion he dared to voice his thought, “Wouldn’t think you’d care.”

“Normally wouldn’t, but we couldn’t really swing being out here unless there was some real threat, and boy is there.”

“Does it say what’s going on with Chloe?” he asked, almost dreading what he’d hear.

Jordan just laughed, “Yeah, they got notes on that, but they’re a cow’s nut short of insane. Ross is lucky they got other shit going on in there or else us comin’ would have been a no go.”

“Who would have kept you from coming?”

“Maybe keep your questions to things that concern you, boy,” Mike said in a tone that warned him the knife might make a reappearance if he kept pushing.

Jordan just sighed, “Suffice to say us being here isn’t exactly legal, for a lot of reasons Mike’ll get even more grumbly if I explain any more than that.”

Sam’s nodded and lowered his voice, “You guys have ties with other governments I get it.” Mike eyed him hard, but he raised his hands in a defensive gesture, “Nadine would only work with the best on this and if you’re that good and breaking the law by just being here, you’re connected. Either that or world famous criminals and I haven't heard of you so...”

“Maybe it’s time everybody stopped talking,” Mike said pointedly.

Jordan shrugged, “Whatever you say, Thatch.”

“We’re all packed and ready to go,” came a voice behind them.

Sam knew it was Nadine and he didn’t have it in him to look at her because he knew he would break down. Instead he stood and walked in the direction of the Jeep he had been assigned.

“Let’s finish this then,” he said over his shoulder.

“Wait,” she said, her hand pulling his wrist so he had to turn.

He allowed himself to face her, but he couldn’t look her in the eyes, she seemed to understand because she didn’t question it, instead she held out her hand.

“Give me your map,” he did so without question, “she’ll be here. I already opened the vent you need to go down. It’s a short drop down and her cell is in the middle of the room.”

With that she handed it back and all Sam could look at was the small red x on the schematics.

“I’ll get her back safe.”

“I know you will.”

And with that they parted for the last time.

Sam practically ran to the small offroad vehicle that had been parked right outside camp. He busied himself with navigating the terrain of the wooded area with its treacherous twists and turns. In his effort to distract himself he kept alert for some hint of the large vent he was supposed to find, thinking it would be some outhouse sized shed in the woods, leaving him to be completely surprised when the trees ended and enormous metal tube sat in front of him, protruding from the earth like an empty metal toilet paper roll.

Taking a deep, bracing breath sat and looked up at it and the steam billowing from the top. It was going to be hot in there, even after they turned it off, yet somehow he looked forward to the climb because it was going to be miserable and he still needed something to keep his mind distracted.

Careful to park the Jeep out of sight he retrieved the bag in the back which, amongst other things, had everything he would need to scale the wall and an extra set for Chloe. He took his time pulling on his climbing harness before using a grappling hook to shoot a hook and three stories of cable up to the top. Making sure the hook was well and truly caught he began to scale the structure with ease. The top afforded him a breathtaking view of the valley and the facility within, now much closer than it had been on the night he had been given this plan.

Sam tied the extra slack around his waist and arms and allowed himself to rest for a moment. The heat of the vent and the breeze allowed by the early morning mist mingling to make an almost surreal feeling of bliss before what he knew was going to be bedlam.

For a moment he allowed himself to think about what was happening and wondered what Nathan would do in his shoes. Would he let Nadine head up a suicide mission leaving her soul mate and child behind? Knowing him no, he wouldn’t.

“But I’m not Nate,” he told himself aloud, forcing himself hear it with his own ears because he needed his head to be on straight.

And seconds later when a blast that shook him even from his perch killed every light in the compound and, more importantly, shut down the steam pouring from the vent, he was as focused as he had ever been.

Feeling like the lead in a new Mission Impossible movie Sam worked his way into the blistering hot vent, the gloves meant to help him climb the rope allowed him not to burn his finger prints off maneuvering down while trying to read the building plans.

It took three minutes to reach the small ledge that allowed him access to one of the offshoots that was far smaller, but still large enough to walk through. Unfortunately it didn’t stay that way and soon he was crawling through the last stretch of piping that the map told him would take him right over Chloe’s room. On the upside the metal wasn’t nearly as hot the deeper in he went, however the blisters on his knees that had formed on his climb down made sure that the trip was just as miserable regardless. As much as he had been ready for discomfort to distract him from the grimness of his task the pain was a bit much, so when he found a vent cover that looked slightly askew he kicked it out without even checking the map and jumped into what he sincerely hoped was Chloe’s room taking in the clinical smell of the area he had fallen into.

The lights still hadn’t turned on, but since he had been using his phone to read in the dark it illuminated the room well enough for him to spot familiar grey eyes looking at him from the other side of a clear cell.

He forced a smile, “Your knight is shining armor is here.”

“Sam?” Chloe asked.

Pointing the phone at his face he nodded, “Yep, I’m here to set you free,” he said and moved to what he assumed was the door and pulled it open with no trouble. He was pretty sure he had seen a blowtorch in the bag just in case, but it seemed as though the power outage had killed the locks.

“Where is Nadine?”

He turned the light off on his phone hoping the darkness would hide the truth his face was surely telling, “Causing a bit of a ruckus for these idiots to deal with, come on we have to go.”

As his eyes adjusted to the dark he could see that she was not moving, merely staring at him in, if he were to guess, suspicion.

Just as he began to sweat the issue she moved to his side and in close proximity he could see just how pregnant she was, “Well let’s see if you can fit into our escape route,” he joked.

“Shut up,” she laughed, as he boosted her up to the metal hatch above.

It took some doing, but with cleaver maneuvering, and a lot of help from Chloe, Sam was able to claw his way back into the shaft and pulled out his phone to once again navigate back to the main vent where their rope to freedom awaited. Keeping Chloe ahead of him and looking constantly at the map in concentration as if he hadn’t already memorized how to get back kept her from asking him anything further. When they made it to daylight he dared to release a sigh of relief as he handed her the additional climbing gloves and harness from his bag. The tension of their crawl through the enclosed space had allowed a lull of silence that persisted as she carefully fit the harness on herself, and then there was an explosion so violent he worried the hook may become dislodged.

Desperate to make sure Chloe didn’t fall he grabbed her and pushed the cable into her hands, “Go, climb, I’ll be right behind you!”

Regrettably the sound hand not only broken the silence, but Chloe’s willingness to allow it to continue. “Where is Nadine, Sam?”

“I told you, causing a distraction,” he said as casually as he could manage.

The smaller woman was clearly not buying it, “Where is she?”

Sam ran his hands over his face not knowing how he was supposed to deal with this here and now perched precariously on a ledge inside a giant heat exhaust that could turn on at any moment.

“She’s destroying the whole place okay? She’s on a mission to bring these guys down and she asked me to come get you.”

“Why?”

“Why what? You think I’m better at tearing down buildings?”

“She knows plenty of people who would do that for next to nothing, why did she come to see me last night and send you today?”

“I don’t know, ask her when you see her,” he said, trying his damnedest to keep his expression light.

“Then we wait for her,” Chloe said and every bit of her exuded stubbornness.

Sam tried not to scream in exasperation, “She isn’t coming out this way-”

“Then take me to where she is coming out.”

“Sure,” he said thickly, “but first we have to get out of here.”

She nodded and started to climb and he followed trying to figure out how to get away with the lie he just told. As he set up the cable to allow them to climb down the other side he wondered if there might be chloroform in the bag.

Once they reached the ground he found there wasn’t, and grudgingly he had to admit that even if there was he didn’t know how bad the stuff would be for a pregnant woman. Dutifully he pulled out his radio to confirm Chloe had been secured, turning it off almost immediately after since he didn’t want her to hear if Nadine responded with mayhem in the background, then he would never get her to leave.

With the woman being a tad out of breath from the climb down he thought that somehow she would just be happy to see the Jeep and just climb inside, but of course it wasn’t that simple.

He tried to guide her to the vehicle, but she just looked out at the buildings a short ways away, now billowing smoke, and then to the sky.

“Where are we?”

“Brazil.”

“Brazil? Damn, I was guessing someplace north of the equator.”

“Chloe we have to go.”

“Where?” she asked, her eyes hard.

Whoever had held her dressed her in a navy blue shirt and pants, the look on a woman who preferred to wear loud colors no matter what the circumstance made her seem dour, but in addition to the look she was giving him Sam was almost sure he would cave.

“I told you, to where Nadine is.”

“Where is that?” she pressed, seeming to know that Sam didn’t actually have an answer.

“Chloe… please get in the Jeep…” he begged; it was already hard enough without her wizening up to the plot.

His plea seemed to clue her in even more than he feared it would, “Sam,” she said and there wasn’t even a hint of levity in her tone, “where is she going to come out?”

“She isn’t,” he said, defeated.

“What?”

“She isn’t coming out. She has to stay, for you, to keep you safe. There is no way for her to do that and make it back so…” it was only then that he realized he was crying.

Chloe just stared for a moment as she had before in her cell, but this time her face hardened into a grimace before she grabbed the cable and began to try to scale the vent again.

“Whoa! Chloe stop!” he shouted reaching to pull her back, then fell short from the look she gave him.

“I’m not going to leave her there to die.”

“She knows that, and that’s why I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“Well you didn’t so it’s fine, but I’m not going. I’ve risked more for less,” she said the words calmly, but there was a fury in her eyes that worried him.

“I don’t think you have. You’re having a baby, Chloe, that changes everything.”

Only those words seemed to get through to her because instead of hooking the cable to her climbing harness she just stood there. Sam took a questioning step forward, unsure if he should approach at all, but when she looked up at him he was shocked to see how lost she was.

“I can’t do this without her, Sam,” she said in a voice so broken it hurt his heart.

If he were to follow his orders he would tell her that she could, that she would have to, that her kid would need her to. But he couldn’t, something in him rebelled at the idea of abandoning Nadine to her fate and leaving Chloe and her baby to pick up the pieces. He knew it wasn’t the same as what had happened with his parents, but be damned if it didn’t feel that way.

“I’ll get her back,” he said, his voice growing stronger with every word. Chloe looked up at him through watery eyes and hope slowly filled them, “I’ll get her back, but you have to trust me and go.”

He pulled out the map to the rendezvous and pushed it into her hands, “There is a man named Sebastien, you have to find him he looks like he’s Rafe’s angry older brother, he’s going to take you to a safehouse. Nadine trusts him, but not too much ‘cause she wanted me to watch him so _be careful,_ okay?”

She looked at the map and nodded, he gave her the keys to the Jeep, pulled her into a quick hug and gave her a brief kiss on the top of the head before clipping himself to the cable again and pulling himself up.

The trip back down went faster, at this point he was used to the heat and the dark, however once he made it back to Chloe’s room he found himself totally lost because Nadine’s map didn’t show where she would be at this point. He turned his radio back on and called for her, but got no response, however there were yells and gunshots coming from the halls and he figured he couldn’t go wrong following them.

He whipped out his pistol from his jeans and pushed the door open, ready for anything. What he got was a silent hallway with echoes of madness bouncing off the walls. Everything was dark except for a few emergency exit lights and a faint orange glow that he felt safe to assume was fire. Quickly he decided to head in the opposite direction and ended up in a series of hallways that he was barely able to navigate with a map, his current goal of following the mayhem waylaid by numerous dead ends and halls that looped around on each other.

By the time he turned a corner and saw a guard he was thankful since it meant that at least he was getting closer to the action, granted that guard immediately tried to shoot him, but Sam was faster on the draw. The fallen guard had several clips and an automatic rifle that he had no trouble pilfering before continuing on his quest. The next person he saw was a part of a larger group leaving him to remember that discretion was the better part of valor as he snuck by them. There were several more groups wandering around that he chose to tactically avoid, the frequency with which he ran into them slowed him down, but it told him he was on the right track.

The groups of guards went from roaming sentries to active combatants and at that point he was quite sure he was close to the center of things. That and the loud explosions that kept going off sending rubble and dust everywhere, scaring the shit out of him, but making it easier to move unseen. Desperate to begin his journey to safety he began looking for some sign of Nadine, but there was no overt sign of her until he came across a body laying on the floor with a walkie. He would have ignored it and kept creeping by, but there was someone hysterical on the other line calling for backup for the lower floors. It was only then that he recalled Nadine’s plan required her to be deep inside the building therefore unable to leave, meaning this plea was likely from someone experience the fullness of her particular skill set. Quickly he pulled out the schematic and saw the lowest point on it.

Without hesitation he took off to the nearest stair entrance.

A mistake he realized in retrospect as he rounded the hundredth corner on the never ending stairwell. Only when he hit the bottom floor did it occur to him that the climbing gear he used to get into the vent could have also been used to rappel down the elevator shaft, making him just groan heavily at himself as he gasped desperately for air.

Once he got his breath back he snuck from the stairwell into the hall and immediately knew he had the right place. The backup that had been called for must have had some sort of emergency entrance or been very nearby because there were men surrounding a room mostly leveled by what Sam could only assume were explosions. Nadine had to be in the middle of all that and if her plan was truly to blow everything at the end then he needed to act fast because all he could see through the destroyed wall was a shot to shit desk towards the back of the room. If the ex-mercenary was under there like he thought she was, then she would be pushing the kill switch any second.

He had to act quickly, but he couldn’t just make a bunch of noise by opening fire. Sure he had the drop on them, but there were about fifteen men and though he might get a couple the rest would mow him down before he could really even the odds. Taking a steadying breath he removed the knife he kept in his boot from its sheath and snuck up on the man that was standing the closest to him.

Clasping his hand over the man’s mouth while shoving the blade in between the gaps in his body armor sent a rush of adrenaline through his system like he hadn’t felt since his jail break.

From there it was pure survival instinct; he worked from the back and killed his way forward. When he came to the last eight he realized they were too close together to sneak and just unloaded a volley on the men closest to the desk knowing he was going to feel like a real asshat if Nadine wasn’t behind it. The second his gun unloaded, killing two and injuring one, the room exploded into confusion and he took that moment to dive behind the desk.

There was almost no room, and several bullets came so close to his head he genuinely thought he was going to die, but there, laying in a puddle of blood was Nadine. Her hand was on a remote that he could only assume would send the whole facility crashing down on their heads, he considered grabbing it from her should the surprise of him turning up startled her into pushing it, but he almost instantly realized that wasn’t necessary. The moment her eyes recognized him the life seemed to return to her and convert into fury.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Where is Chloe?” she growled in what he was sure would have been a shout if she had all her energy.

“She’s safe, but she figured out what you were up to and I promised I’d come and get you,” he said quickly.

Nadine’s face hardened, “This doesn’t change anything.”

Bullets fired right above his head and he returned it blindly, trying to hold them back long enough for him to convince the woman he was trying to rescue to not kill them both.

“It does. She needs you Nadine. I came to get you out of here, alive, so you can press that button from safety. I don’t know about past arguments and all that shit, but if you love her, if you ever have, you will try for her.”

Nadine lay her head back on the slate of metal separating her from a deadly spray of bullets, “We are surrounded, and it’ll only get worse, our guys are pulling out so the remaining forces will have nowhere else to go, but here.”

“Then we kill these nerds and repel up the elevator shaft, the power’s down it’s the last place they’ll look.”

“I’m injured, badly.”

More fire and frantic return fire had Sam feeling more desperate to go than ever, “Then I’ll carry you on my back. I’m not giving up, I plan to live and move to a beautiful island and have a gorgeous wife who gives me a dozen kids. You will not stop me from living that dream, and if I leave here without you, alive, then Chloe will kill me, ending said dream. So you have to get up, now!”

There was a moment where Sam was quite sure that Nadine would ignore him and just press the button anyway, but instead, with great effort, she hauled herself into a squat keeping her head clear of the top of the desk. It was only then that he saw how much blood she had lost; the pants he though had been darkly colored were just stained with blood. The pallor of her face was poor even in the low light and he could see she was at the very edge of consciousness.

“One thing at a time. We have to clear the room,” she said slowly.

He handed her the extra ammo, “Here.”

“Sam,” she looked him in the eye and he could feel how serious she was, “if this fails, if I die or fall behind, you have to do it.”

He knew what she meant, “You two have got to stop making me agree to fatal promises.”

With a groan she yanked off one of her sleeves and tied it tight around the cut on her leg while Sam lay down some more cover fire.

“On three?” she asked.

He nodded, “One.”

“Two.”

“Three,” the both yelled launching from behind separate ends of the desk.

Sam fired in a frenzy dropping every guard he saw and putting two bullets in an already dead body in his fervor. Nadine seemed to be just as precise, though likely more so, since after they stopped firing there wasn’t another sound.

Not waiting for anyone else to appear Sam jumped up and scrambled to get Nadine to her feet. The woman was heavier than he would have thought, but he got her up and pulled out the schematic, now thoroughly worn down from all the unfolding and refolding. He looked for an elevator shaft and found a long line of blank space that had to be one.

As quietly as he could he lead them out to the hall and to the metal doors that would lead them to freedom. He had never been one for prayer, but he prayed emphatically at that moment that at least one elevator be on their floor. Struggling to pry the doors apart he was able to get them just open enough to slide inside and he had to fight not to collapse in relief as he saw one of the metal boxes sitting right next to him. Once they were both inside he struggled once again to yank the metal doors shut, disguising their escape.

His joy at completing the task and relief that, since they were on the bottom floor, he didn’t have to find a way to get Nadine onto the cables, led him to be completely shocked by the sight of how far they would have to climb to get out.

Nadine sat slouched, looking up at the seemingly insurmountable task before them.

“Go without me. You tried Sam, you did your best.”

Ignoring her he pulled out the necessary tools from his bag and forcefully hoisted Nadine up on his back crawling with her to the top of the elevator. It was with silent determination that he clipped his gear to the cable it was never meant to, and barely could, grasp and started the climb.

The very second he pulled their full weight off the ground he knew he couldn’t do it.

For two or three floors maybe, but there was no earthly way he could get them to the top.

He didn’t let it stop him though, he kept sliding the clasps up one behind the other determined that if ever there was a time to test his physical limit this was it.

As it turned out his limit was four floors, more than he thought, but less than he hoped.

His arms were fire and his lungs didn’t know how to get enough air, simply holding on was draining him and he wondered if he just had Nadine trigger the detonator then if it would still be considered brave versus while they were both already falling to their deaths.

Then he felt a stir on his back, one he would have verbally discouraged if he had the breath for it, but as it turned out it was Nadine somehow getting it together to come to his rescue. Her legs squeezed his midsection tightly and her hands covered his as she grabbed the clasps and kept them sliding up, overtaking the task of getting them to the top.

On some level Sam wanted to mad that an injured woman had to bail him out of what was essentially a rope climb, but he couldn’t honestly muster it because Nadine was a touch superhuman. How after all her wounds and blood loss she could support any of his weight while moving them upwards at a greater clip escaped him.

Despite how efficiently she took over Sam refused to let her work alone so he rallied himself and did his part, doing everything he could to contribute to their ascension and lessen the burden of his weight. Every time she lifted her hand he found the strength to do so as well, she kept him going, all he did was focus on her unwavering momentum and soon they were next to the other elevator, hovering harmlessly on the sixth floor. Unclasping from the cable they managed to swing over to the edge and shimmy up the side to the top. Once on it they stopped to breathe, but Nadine didn’t let them sit long. Sam wasn’t sure if it was because she was eager to leave or afraid that if she stopped she wouldn’t start again, but he didn’t ask. Instead when she made to stand he did so as well, helping her up onto his back and getting them ready to keep going.

He didn’t know how long they climbed, all he knew was the sound of their panting and the shouts of guards as they passed doors. In all he knew there were about ten floors so the worst of it had passed, however the burn in his arms begged to differ. Everything hurt so badly, but was somehow also numb. Like all normal senses left and were replaced with an all encompassing ache.

It was only when Nadine’s voice said, “There,” did he realize that they had reached the end of the journey. It was also when registered how shaky her voice was, making him worry that even if he got her out of the compound she may still not make it back home alive.

“Got it,” he said, but he didn’t, because there was nowhere to stand and as it was, with decent footing he’d barely gotten the last doors to open.

“Get us over there,” Nadine wheezed, “I’ll open the doors.”

He wanted to challenge her on that, but he honestly didn’t have a better idea, so instead of trying to talk her out of using what was clearly the last of her energy he made a leap for the ledge right below the door. It was a rather insane move since it meant trying to catch himself and Nadine on tired, worn out arms, but luckily his partner knew that. The moment they were in range she jammed her hands into the space between the doors and pushed them apart with an almighty groan. The strain of the effort made her whole body flex, her thighs saving Sam from his blunder of a jump, keeping him in place.

He scrambled up to the floor and pulled himself out, the fresh morning air hitting him square in the face. Relieved to know freedom was so close he turned to grab Nadine’s hand and felt his heart leap into his throat as he saw it slip away.

It wasn’t clear to him at first what had happened, she had slipped or fainted, either way he didn’t have time to think about it he just lunged after her hand and caught it.

Her full dead weight on his tired, trembling arms almost pulled them both to their death, but he refused to go, instead scrambling back and pulling her with him.

Once on solid ground her eyes snapped open in alarm, but she seemed to quickly realize that the danger had passed.

“Yeah, you tried to bail on me, but I won’t let ya,” Sam laughed.

Nadine attempted a half smile, however what came out was more of a grimace.

Looking around Sam noted they were at the front of the facility, the elevator was right past the security checkpoint that was now deserted. It was technically outside, only a large outcropping of the building sheltered the rest of the space from the weather. The doors to the building proper were behind them and Sam couldn’t have been happier.

“Let’s get clear and you can blow this thing.”

With Sam’s help Nadine struggled to her feet and they limped a short ways away before, without so much as a heads up, Nadine hit the switch.

The explosion was, in Sam’s opinion, supernatural in scale, the explosions started beneath their feet and kept growing stronger as they rose. It felt like a giant was running up a mountain to crush them. Slowly, but surely, the building began to collapse on itself, and as Sam turned to watch he saw two people scramble out before everything above the ground floor sunk into the earth.

He turned and fired on them downing one, the other returned fire and the bullet whizzed between him and Nadine. In that instant there were two things he knew, that another bullet was going to come, and the woman at his side could not handle one more injury.

On instinct he pulled her down and tried to shield her from the return fire, when nothing happened he turned to send a few bullets of his own, but the man fell over, apparently dead.

Standing in confusion he looked around to see a pair of ridiculous goggles staring back. From the forest, a ways away, came Jordan looking like an absurd hunter who’d sniped some particularly squirrely game.

When he approached he pulled his goggles onto his forehead, “Brought our leader back, eh? Good man. Lucky I was hopin’ for something like that ‘cause otherwise I would have beaned you the second you came outta that shaft.”

“Wish you woulda beaned those two before they took shots at us.”

“I didn’t see ‘em at first cause I was on my way down to help,” he said, walking past Sam to Nadine who he only just noticed was looking at him in extreme alarm.

“What?” he asked as he turned quickly, expecting another assailant. When he saw no one he relaxed and laughed a little, “Is there something in my hair?”

Now Jordan was looking at him with that same expression, “Son I think we better get you to a medic.”

“Wha-” he started, turning again to look at himself and patting his body.

When his hand came back bloody he understood. He had been shot in the back.

Even now he didn’t feel it, but the exhaustion from the climb, the shock of discovering the wound and the sudden loss of blood took his senses. The only thing he could think as he collapsed to the ground was; _well Nadine fainted so it’s only fair I get to._

 

* * *

 

When Sam woke again everything was different, he didn’t know where he was, he just knew it wasn’t where he had been. A brief look around let him know he was probably back at camp, but definitely in a medical tent.

He also spotted Nadine next to his bed resting in a chair, an IV in the arm that wasn’t bandaged.

His attention was pulled as Mike came in the room with a phone between his ear and his shoulder and a clipboard in hand.

“What the bloody hell do you want me to say, Doc. Ross refuses to stay in ‘er bed and Drake seems stable, but I mean fuck man he fainted from one bullet.”

“I’ll have you know it was a bullet, a shit ton of adrenaline and a ten story rope climb,” he protested to Mike and whoever he was speaking to.

“Yeah, the little twat is up. Does that mean he’s fine now or…”

“Are there no actual doctors on this crack team?” Sam asked trying delicately to sit up.

“There are plenty never you mind,” growled Mike as he continued to listen to what the person on the other end was saying. Then he pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it, “How do you hang these up?”

Sam gave some serious thought to teasing the man about being such a dinosaur that he didn’t fully understand cell phones however he hadn’t forgotten their first official meeting and kept his mouth shut.

“We have doctors, good ones, but he just wants to make sure we have the best,” came Nadine’s voice from her chair.

Sam turned to see her looking at him with a light smile, Mike just grunted before he checked some stats on the beeping monitor next to Sam’s bed and left.

“That guy’s gotta work on his bedside manner if he ever wants to be more than a nurse,” he chuckled.

“I’ll let him know.”

Only now remembering what was going on he sat up suddenly only to be robbed of all his strength by the splitting pain in his side.

“What about Chloe?” he panted through the discomfort.

Nadine looked towards the outdoors through the flap of their tent, “I’m sure she’s fine, I had a text waiting for me after I got patched up that said, ‘You better not be dead’.”

“Did you reply?”

She paused for another long moment, “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

Frowning Sam sat up again, far more carefully, “How about ‘Don’t worry, I’m alive,’ ya idiot. Did you think I was joking before? She was very serious about me getting you out alive. There is no love lost between you two.”

Nadine just shook her head her eyes never meeting his, “It would honestly be better if she thought I was gone.”

Rolling his eyes Sam grabbed the nearest thing he could grab, an empty plastic bedpan, and threw it at her. He was quite sure she was going to turn around and murder him for doing so, and the look on her face when it bounced off her head didn’t make him feel he had been wrong, however he didn’t back down.

“The both of you are so fucking stubborn! I can’t even imagine how competitive the sex is!” Nadine looked for a moment like she might interject, but he spoke over any potential comments, “No, you hush. Chloe obviously still cares for you more than anyone else in the world and whatever it is that makes you think she doesn’t is something you’ve made up in your own head. You fucked up, I get it, we all do sometimes. Go, find her, and apologize for the following reasons; she will obviously forgive you, cause you’re having a kid, and, most importantly, if you play dead it’s going to look like I didn’t do my job and fuck that!”

Nadine sat up looking pained, “It’s not just what I said it’s… Sam I don’t know how to be a parent, I’m not ready-”

“If my brother can figure it out then anyone can. First things first. Go find your woman.”

He stared until she finally met his gaze and he offered her a smile, “I don’t know how to thank you, for everything.”

“You do. So go do it.”


	9. Denouement

Chloe shifted in her seat, desperate not to seem too fidgety, but needing the relief. The chair she was in couldn’t have been softer, yet worry and pregnancy made comfort hard to come by.

The man who had escorted her to the lavish hotel they were now in sat across from her hugging the oddest rifle she had ever seen. Sebastien was an odd fellow, he rarely spoke and when he did it was as if he were so bored by his assignment he could barely stand it. Though every time she tried to dismiss him he just waved the offer away, insisting it was his duty to see things through.

The only sound was from the television that she wasn’t watching, her thoughts only on the phone that her accomplice had confiscated from her. After they landed in Johannesburg she received a text from Nadine, just the thought of it made her heart jump into her throat, there had been two days of silence from both her and Sam then finally something. Next thing she knew stick-in-the-mud Sebastien had decided it was likely a trap and taken it from her. Despite her many skills in sweet talking and pick pocketing the phone remained in his possession.

She chose to take the text as a positive as she did everything that involved Nadine these days. There was no proof that the text wasn’t a ruse, and even if it wasn’t it could just say ‘Have a nice life’ because through it all they had never officially resolved the issue of her coming home pregnant seemingly out of nowhere. The rescue may have been a courtesy born of love though not a romantic one.

Nadine had apologized, she said her love had never wavered. Though she heard it with her own ears she didn’t want to believe it, even with her determination to remain positive, because how could that be true? Either she had imagined the hurt and anguish when she first told Nadine about the baby or she had imagined the admission of love and if she were honest with herself it seemed too much to hope.

Yet if she had imagined Nadine’s words then how was she out now?

Bouncing the confusing thoughts around in her head was what kept her occupied over the week she was in forced seclusion, and that day was no different, her sitting looking at the television with glazed eyes while Sebastien sat opposite her looking his usual disinterested self until the monotony was broken by a heavy knock on the door.

The moment the sound happened the man was on his feet, his gun trained at the door. The room filled with tension as he silently signaled for her to fall back, the only place she could hide was the bathroom at the back of the room however it seemed like, if there were an intruder, that would hardly help.

Taking her handgun with her she did as Sebastien asked and slipped into the bathroom peeking through a crack in the door in case she needed to interfere.

“Who is it?” he asked in a flat tone as he hoisted his gun up to face height at the door without even looking through the peephole.

She suspected the man wasn’t an idiot if he was hired by Nadine meaning that if he fired that thing he knew it to be capable of blasting someone on the other side of the thick wooden door.

“Vive le Québec libre,” came from the other side of the door, and even before it opened Chloe knew who was on the other side.

The man’s posture relaxed, though he kept his rifle in hand as he opened it and Chloe felt her heart leap into her throat as she finally saw the person she had ached to see for nearly a year. Somehow she found herself unable to just step out and greet her, a slight panic making her heart race because she didn’t know what to say after all this time. Instead she leaned against the cool wall and listened.

Opening the door Sebastien replied, “And a long life it will have indeed.”

“You think command would like you taking such a political stance?”

He sighed, “A code phrase has to be something no one would expect. Speaking of which, you assured me we didn’t need one, it was my understanding that you would not be meeting us.”

“I, um, things didn’t go according to plan.”

“It’s because you called in old men for a young man’s job,” she heard him turn and take a few steps inside, “I had her hide in the bathroom.”

Knowing she couldn’t hide forever Chloe took a steadying breath and pushed the door open, the moment she laid eyes on Nadine she wanted to run and collapse in her arms, but the look on her face was unreadable. Also her right arm was bandaged from wrist to shoulder making her think that dramatic gesture might not be the best idea. Furthermore she honestly didn’t know if they were in that place yet and she would rather be sure before she exposed herself so thoroughly.

“Thank you for everything Sebastien, I’ve got her from here,” she said to him, her eyes never leaving Chloe’s.

“You sure? I’m here as long as you need me.”

“I’m sure.”

He sighed and lazily draped his rifle over his neck, “Okay,” was all he said before he packed his gun away in one of the two large bags he had brought with him, gathered and packed the sparse few things he left lying around and walked out the door with a languid, “Ba bye.”

With that prompt exit the hotel door shut automatically, it was so quiet Chloe could hear the electronic lock engage after it closed.

Nadine just stood there before her, face still unreadable, stance as rigid as ever and Chloe felt an urge to yell at her to get her to make some sort of readable expression.

There were a million things that needed to be said, but since Chloe had never been known for her ability to gracefully delve into tough subjects she chose, “So… hot outside, eh?”

Nadine didn’t respond at all and Chloe felt the tension in the air pushing her to speak again, anything just to break it, but finally the other woman spoke.

“I am so sorry.”

Chloe managed a half smile, “You’ve already said that.”

“I only found out the truth after they’d taken you.”

Her eyebrow went up, “You believe me? About what happened?”

Nadine nodded, “It’s why they took you. And it still seems insane and impossible, but between us and the Drakes I think we’ve seen enough insane and impossible shit to know nothing is too crazy to be real.”

Daring to let herself hope she took a step forward, then another, her body feeling magnetized to the woman before her. Her pride once again wanted her to hang back and make Nadine come to her, but new Chloe was in no mood so she dashed forward, hugging the woman she had missed so badly, careful not to squeeze her injured arm.

Tears streamed down her face as she held Nadine as closely as she could over her pregnancy bump, and when the other woman wraped both around her she found she could barely stand as relief flooded her.

Angrily she punched Nadine’s side, “Don’t you ever let me hear of you doing a suicide mission ever again, do you hear me!” she yelled into her chest.

“Never again,” she said, holding Chloe tighter.

Carefully Nadine sat them down on the bed and let Chloe fall apart in her arms.

When her cries reduced to sobs they both lay back on the mattress Chloe refusing to feel even an ounce of shame as she pulled Nadine’s uninjured arm over her rib cage, letting a sense of completion like she hadn’t in so very long washed over her on contact.

There was a long silence where nothing was said because nothing needed to be. They just lay in silence, Chloe trying not to start crying again because that new internal voice was telling her all about how this was what she had hoped for all along. To have this child with Nadine, with her understanding the truth. They were going to be parents together and after all that happened the thought seemed delusional. Then again so did every event that had led them to this point.

As it all started to feel normal again she dared to break the silence that had fallen over them.

“Did you mean what you said? That you never stopped loving me?” she wasn’t even sure why she asked, but it was somehow something she needed to know.

“Yes,” the answer was so very quiet if Nadine hadn’t been right next to her she might not have heard.

“Then why didn’t you come home?” the question was just as quiet, as if asking it might send her away.

The silence returned and it was the heaviest one Chloe had felt in ages.

“I did, I just never came to the door.” More silence followed and for a while she worried that was all she was going to get then Nadine spoke again. “I was gone for about a month. I went to see my parents, to just be mad and get over you. By the time I left I thought I had, but when I went to get a ticket and go back to my apartment in Cape Town I ended up in Finland.”

“That’s quite the detour,” Chloe mumbled quietly.

Nadine just nodded into her hair, “I won’t pretend me coming back was all about wanting to get back together. I was still angry and, I don’t know, I guess didn’t want to live the rest of my life not knowing who had stolen you from me so… I stalked you a bit…”

Chloe couldn’t help but laugh, turning over she looked into Nadine’s abashed eyes, “I had my very own stalker?”

“For quite some time.”

“How long were you skulking about?”

“Up until you were taken.”

She laughed again, “What were you doing all that time?”

A light shrug, “Nothing important. Odd jobs, staying at a hotel when I wasn’t on the hill down the road from our apartment watching you. Waiting to see if you ever met with the baby’s father.”

“And when I didn’t?”

This part seemed to make her uncomfortable because she couldn’t meet Chloe’s eyes anymore, “I spent a lot of time just watching you come and go and after a while I just… stopped being angry. I was still hurt, but it seemed that you were just planning to live your life without anyone else to help you. Seeing you almost every day I started to miss you no matter how I felt about our relationship. I was even at the point of wanting to come back and try again, baby and all, when Leben came for you.”

Chloe chuckled, “So you watched my fat arse drag the trash to the bin once a week and didn’t even try to help?”

As much as she had tried to make light of the situation Nadine seemed not to find the humor in it, “I did, and I tried to stay mad about what I thought you’d done.”

“And you know now that I didn’t?”

“I do.”

“Then all’s forgiven,” she said, relieved to have it done with.

“It shouldn’t be, I didn’t believe in you and the things I said-”

Chloe clamped her hand over Nadine’s mouth, “The things you said would have all been completely warranted if I had done what it really looked like I had. I just want to move on because there is so much ahead of us.”

“Which is another thing, I don’t think I would make a good parent-”

Once again Chloe cut her off, “Do you want to be a part of this child’s life?”

“Ja, of course.”

“Then you will make a great parent, trust the word of someone who knows you.”

Looking into her brown eyes Chloe could feel the protest building in her girlfriend, the need to argue how poorly suited she would be to the task, but Chloe had grown tired of hearing such things and instead leaned in and kissed her.

It was a kiss to settle all the worries and insecurities that lay between them, it started innocently enough, but all their time apart stripped that away almost instantly. Chloe personally wanted Nadine in all the ways she could manage in her condition, however when her lover’s hand went beneath her shirt her natural discomfort in her body’s current state surfaced. Her hand caught Nadine’s and the look on her face told her that if she didn’t explain herself immediately their reunion was going to be fraught with more issues than it needed.

“I, uh, I’ve grown a bit, since we were last, together,” she panted, arousal and embarrassment clear on her face.

Finally a smile appeared on Nadine’s face, “I’ve noticed.”

“I just don’t think you actually want me this way.”

“Chloe I’ve spent several months watching you through binoculars and until a day ago I thought I was never going to see you again, I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

And just like that the other woman dispelled the worrying feeling that had been lurking, “Nadine Ross, are you telling me that you will do anything to get into my pants.”

“At this point, yes I am.”

Wasting no more time they kissed again putting worry and doubt aside and letting their love take the lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly this is a prequel work, the main story sort of implied all this happened, but at a certain point I felt it really needed a more direct explanation. I don't like to start posting stories until they are completely finished so it may be a bit before I post anything else, and supposing life doesn't get in the way and stop me it won't be too terribly long until you are able to read what all this was leading up to.
> 
> Thanks for reading and to all those who choose to leave comments.
> 
> Until next time.


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